Has the weight of the 400-goal milestone and a five-game goalless streak been weighing on Boston Bruins captain Brad Marchand?
Marchand took a maintenance day and did not practice with his teammates on Friday before they took off for Philadelphia to face the Flyers in a 1 p.m. ET matinee on Saturday. Boston Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery told the media Saturday that he couldn’t 100 percent commit to his captain playing on Saturday afternoon, but he likely will.
“Most likely, I’m not going to say 100 percent,” Montgomery said.
After that, Montgomery was asked about his struggling powerplay after practice on Friday and acknowledged that Marchand’s current frustration is part of the reason the Bruins went 0-for-3 in a 5-2 loss to the New York Rangers on Thursday night.
Whether it’s the physical grind of the season and the grueling schedule Brad Marchand and the Boston Bruins find themselves in right now or the fact that Marchand needs one goal to become the fifth player in franchise history to score 400 goals, Montgomery understands what his captain may be going through right now.
“Well, I think the 82 (regular season games) grind where you’re going to have nights where you have it and nights when you don’t,” Montgomery said of his captain after practice on Friday. “But I think with Brad, we always get his maximum effort, and that’s how he leads us, and I think that’s why we’re one of the teams with the most points in the league is because a lot of the times, your team plays the reflection of your captain and our captain competes really hard, I feel our team competes really hard.
But with that, there’s frustration like I talked about, and he’s part of that frustration on the powerplay, right? He expects to do great things, and that’s why he’s an elite player, but sometimes it doesn’t go your way, and sometimes you get impatient. I think he’s a little impatient right now, especially on the powerplay, not so much 5-on-5.”
It should be noted that Marchand does have four assists during his five-game goal drought and will enter Saturday’s tilt with the Flyers second on the team in goals (27), assists (35), and points with 62, trailing only winger David Pastrnak who has 44 goals and 55 assists for 99 points. That being said, now would be a great time for him and the Bruins if he can start lighting the red lamp again.
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