;
Poll: Should Marchand be suspended?
Share
As first reported by Fluto Shinzawa of The Boston Globe via Twitter (@globefluto), forward Brad Marchand will have a phone hearing tomorrow with NHL Disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan regarding his game misconduct for clipping defenseman Sami Salo towards the end of the second period in the Boston Bruins’ 4-3 loss to the Vancouver Canucks Saturday.
Here’s a clip of Saturday’s incident:
While Marchand might face discipline, Milan Lucic will not. The Vancouver native had his game misconduct rescinded by the league yesterday after they determined his line change was “legal” during the first period brawl in front of the Canucks’ bench that saw Shawn Thornton get mugged by four Vancouver players before the donnybrook began.
Here’s the clip of Saturday’s first period line brawl:
While many agree that Lucic should not have been ejected, there is still some mixed feelings about Marchand’s game misconduct. So here’s your chance to let your voice be heard:
This check when slowed down appears to make contact in the lower hip / upper thigh area.In my day this was called a hip.check. When executed properly….it’s a thing of beauty (unless your on the recieving end). A clipping penalty is usually determined by taking someone out at the knee’s. A good hip-check as Marchand threw on Salo has always resulted in high-fives and pats on the back. Not penalty’s game misconducts and pending suspensions. I do hope Salo is alright.
I agree with Joey above. No suspension for legal hip checks, whether delivered by surprise or not. What needs to be looked at here is Salo attempting to run Marchand, and the unsportsmanlike conduct of launching his stick down around the dasher (and what if the stick toss had gone into the fans instead?). What also needs to be looked at regarding this game is the how the officiating in this game clearly affected the outcome. A] The Marchand game misconduct & 5 min PP for Vancouver was catastrophic, as was B] the bogus Lucic game misconduct after SIX Canucks piled on to Thornton (where’s the 2nd man in penalty, not to mention the 3rd, and 4th, and 5th…?) with the assistance of TWO additional Canucks holding him down from the bench. And what about Burrows slashing Paille then raising his stick to Thornton’s throat, which led to all this? And at last: How the hell do the Bruins come out of this 2 men short for 2 minutes? It doesn’t even work out properly on the score sheet. This is a great lesson for ref schools of how ref snafu occurs.
And btw, has anyone ever examined how Ryan Miller tried to separate Looch from his legs with his goal stick after that poor bit of judgement by Miller?
I have many reasons to defend Marchand on this hit. 1) Salo was much bigger than Machand and was commiting to a hit. If Marchand challenges Salo with a high hit, Marchand would lose that battle and also risk injury. He had to defend himself and going low vs. High was the safer choice. 2) Salo saw what Marchand was doing and turned his back on him at the last moment to draw a penalty. If he didn’t turn his back on Marchand, he would have had a chance to roll out of the fall and avoid injury. Salo’s injury was a result of his own stupidity. 3) When was the last time you got a concussion and threw your stick out of anger? Looks like he was more concerned about the call than his actual health.
I do feel, however, that Marchand needs to take it easy with these visits to Shanahan and start cleaning up his game a bit. So a suspension should be issued, but not more than 2 games.
Oh, and by the way…
Marchand did not deliver a “hit”. Salo attempted to deliver a hit, and failed. Why in all of this discussion does the subject of impetus just get ignored? The force supplied in Salo’s upending came from Salo himself. Just as in the Max Pax “hit” involving Chara, if you turn on the speed to take a run at opposing players in an icy rink filled with immovable objects, you can expect that sometimes the outcome will be less than advantageous. Heck, sometimes you even run into your own guys while speeding and not looking out for others. Just ask Crosby and Letang.