
Marchand/By S. Bradley
After squandering two two-goal leads and losing games on back-to-back nights, the Bruins are taking today off.
That’ll give Brad Marchand extra time to think about what he’s done.
The rookie winger was benched for the third period of Boston’s 4-2 loss on Long Island by head coach Claude Julien last night. The official league play-by-play sheet had Marchand skating one brief shift in that last stanza, but if you blinked you missed it.
Marchand took an ill-advised interference penalty on Josh Bailey along the side wall, where he was anticipating the arrival of a hard-around pass by another Islanders player. There was just 1:15 left in the second period, and then with two seconds left in the period the Islanders cut Boston’s lead to 2-1 with a momentum-turning power-play goal.
Thursday night against Buffalo, Marchand’s tripping penalty in the neutral zone against Andrej Sekera set up the Sabres for a 5-on-3, which they used to tie the game early in the third period on their way to an overtime win.
“He knows better than that,” Julien told the media after the game. “We don’t want those kinds of habits to develop in his game, because he’s really been a good player for us this year. He’s playing a little frustrated right now and he’s been taking some really poor penalties. I didn’t feel he was going to help us in the third the way he was playing.”
The night started out swell for Marchand, who earned some power-play time on one of the Bruins’ new-look quintets, which Julien and his staff put together in an effort to revive the moribund man-attack. But by the time the final stanza of a tight game rolled around, the Bruins’ third-leading goal scorer was out of the rotation.
Oft-criticized for his failure to take away a major chunk of a player’s ice time as punishment during his tenure as Bruins coach, Julien is taking a major risk with his singling out of Marchand. On a team that right now features just one scoring line, the Bruins need Marchand to reconnect with Patrice Bergeron and whoever their line’s third winger is and get the offense going again. Marchand has now gone eight games without a goal.
It’ll be interesting to see how the outspoken, emotional rookie whose game is based so much on aggression responds to his benching — both mentally and physically. Marchand has come a long way in terms of maturity this season. Always an irritating player dating back to junior hockey, he has mostly toed the line and kept his agitating from costing the Bruins. Even the two penalties he took to spark Julien’s ire weren’t of the “extracurricular” variety.
Even if he publicly declares he’ll move on and use the benching as a learning point — which you know he probably will — Marchand’s relationship with his coach could be on a rocky road. While their off-ice dealings might not affect his play, Marchand might find himself thinking more rather than reacting out on the ice. If he thinks he could pick up a penalty and then lose ice time, Marchand might shy away from making a big play or just not be less rambunctious, which might cause further drop-off in his contribution level.
These are the trials a coach goes through, especially with a young player. Julien has cast his lot and now we’ll see what he gets out of his 22-year-old down the stretch of the season.
I think Julien benches players that he knows are capable of playing better or differently, or rookies that are having a tough time (Bartkowski and earlier Seguin). He can send a message to a Marchand, Savard, or Horton because he knows that they are capable of giving more. Ryder doesn’t have anything else to add to his game, he is an offensive minded streaky scorer who’s contract raises fan expectations (J.D. Drew effect). Marchand is capable of playing better, I don’t think Ryder is.
I agree with the Ryder comments. Maybe you bench Marchand for a shift or two, but he is one of a handful of players that goes all out all the time. You can’t sit that for a whole period.
At the same time he has benched the Marchands and Hortons of the world, Ryder keeps hopping over the boards night in night out. Ryder floats, seemingly tries less than 1/3 of the time and doesn’t score or play defense. It boggles the mind that he continues to play. It will be addition by subtraction when he is gone next year.
@Smaha – He did not bench Paille and Stuart. People were playing better than them. That is not a benching when your 7th D and 13th F get scratched.
Savard was coming back from injury, of course he had to earn minutes to go from 3rd line to 1st line.
He rolled significant minutes to Kampfer and MCQuaid because he had to play them for injuries and then they earned the minutes.
Only reason Hamill played was because Toronto was choosing between Colborne and him. And in Hamill’s case, it was at the expense of Seguin, so no vet lost minutes in that case.
And taking Ryder off power play ? That is not a benching, every coach modifies their 2nd PP unit all the time when things are not clicking.
And moving guys up and down the line-up when they continue to see the same number of overall minutes is not a benching, that is coaching. Recchi is not seeing any fewer minutes by going from 2nd to 3rd.
Cheers.
“I didn’t feel he was going to help us in the third the way he was playing.”
You know what, good for Julien! Marchand’s play the past few games might be from mental fatigue of such a long season, and coach needs to get control of it before it costs them in the playoffs. Agreed that none of us know how he’ll respond, but you can’t blame the coach for this one.
As for the vets, he just dropped Recchi from the 2nd line, he sat Stuart and Paille in favor of a couple of rookies, he took Ryder off the PP for a good stretch of time, he made Savard earn some time on the 3rd line before bumping him up to the 1st, and so on. Remember the Savard/Horton benching in Tampa? How about the week where he rolled significant minutes to a team that included Kampfer, McQuaid, Marchand, Seguin and Hamill?
You can’t say that Julien doesn’t hold the veterans accountable. It’s just not true…
I can understand why some fans have this permanent thing against Michael Ryder based on his invisibility last year and his failure in his time in Boston to live up to his contract statistically, but this argument that he’s hurting the team this year with dumb penalties and lack of effort really doesn’t make sense. He’s taken 20 total penalty minutes so far this season, which is behind every regularly starting player currently on the roster except Seguin. Most nights he is a strong and visible presence in terms of his puck pursuit and overally effort. Not the goal scoring machine we wanted, granted, but hardly deserving of pariah status either. And I’m not a big Ryder fan, but at least his effort has been consistent.
As for Marchand, he’s shown so much growth this year that I feel like he’ll figure things out without a dropoff. A one period benching won’t kill him, and he seems to have the type of character that will drive him to want to improve. I don’t see this creating a rift…message sent, and Julien and Marchand will move forward.
its about time. Marchand can you play hockey and shutup, do you know how? I am ready to vote you 7th player but you lately are doing more to hurt the team than help. you are undisciplined. period. shape up and get back to your winning ways. the team needs you.
Why doesn’t CJ ever bench Ryder when he takes a lame tripping or hooking penalty?
I absolutely cannot wait for julien to get kicked out of boston.. this guy is a joke and its becoming painfully obvious that he cannot deal with his personnel .. i wish the bruins just let ramsay take over at the beginning of the year..
Marchand had a history of taking needless penalties in junior. Things aren’t going his way right now so Claude is letting him know that this is the pros and you don’t let emotion get to you like your in Bantam. I can’t believe I’m defending Claude but I”ve seen this cocky selfish attitude from Marchand before. Get your linemates going and start playing like you can.
I think if the penalties had been taken when he was agitating, it might be different, but these two penalties were just stupid and that is why he was sat.
The benching continues to show Julien has no backbone with the vets and will not bench anybody but the rookies.
Paille should be sitting and it should be Kelly-Campbell-Thornton and Seguin-Peverly-Ryder (putting recchi back on 2nd line).
They have enough penalty killers, they dont need Paille dressing.
I think it’s a great idea to mess with the heads of the rookies, but keep rolling out Ryder every 4 shifts so that he can float around the ice like a ghost.
I think the tripping penalty had a bit of a dive involved but the interference was pure dumb.
I don’t have a real sense for how Marchand will deal with this but I kind of wonder if he might not find his mojo again skating with Campbell and Thorton again.
Benching him for taking a dumb penalty doesn’t see unreasonable to me-although I have seen Ryder take a ton of dumb penalties over the last two seasons, and I doubt Julien will hold him to the same standard.