In a game the Bruins badly needed to win, interim coach Joe Sacco sat Brad Marchand in overtime and didn’t use him in the shootout. This is the same Brad Marchand who has 21 career overtime goals, the most ever by a Bruin and third most among active players.
After the Bruins lost the game that knocked them out of playoff position, Sacco said Marchand wasn’t injured.
“No, he wasn’t hurt, no. Nope,” he said.
Was it a coach’s decision?
“Yeah.”
For now, that’s all that they’ve made public and a team that doesn’t need a distraction, opened itself up for a big one.
Sacco is an economic speaker. Perhaps to avoid talking himself into trouble the way Jerod Mayo often did, he usually doesn’t say a lot more than he has to.
But speculation will fill this void — on social media and certainly on sports radio — until Sacco or Marchand clears it up. If there’s a good reason or at least a reason Marchand didn’t play, Sacco would be wise to volunteer it quickly and get out ahead of it. Maybe he and Marchand have already cleared the air. Maybe Marchand agrees with him. There’s missing information. The Bruins would be smart to get facts out before the rumors start.
It’s not Marchand’s first distraction this season.
Earlier in the year, Jim Montgomery demonstratively yelled at him on the bench and even shoved him on the bench after a bad turnover. Afterward, Marchand downplayed the exchange and even agreed with Montgomery’s handling of it.
Just last week, WEEI’s Rich Keefe reported on the air that there was friction between Marchand and David Pastrnak, but cast Pastrnak as the source of the problem. Both Marchand and Pastrnak publicly disputed the report and ridiculed Keefe.
None of those have anything to do with this. But human nature, especially around a team that is struggling will make fans treat this incident like the next thing, not a new or separate one.
The added wrinkle is the timing.
On Wednesday, Bruins president Cam Neely said the front office is looking at the trade deadline (March 7) down two paths. Path one is to get better now. Path two is get better for the future.
“We’d certainly like to improve,” Neely told reporters at the Black and Gold Gala in Boston on Wednesday night. “We’ve got to look at two paths. One that we’re buying. One that we may be retooling a little bit. We still feel like we’ve got a playoff team here. We certainly don’t want to jeopardize getting out of the playoffs because we made some moves that may be good for the future but not good for the present.”
Neely added that he doesn’t have the appetite for an overhaul, but doesn’t want to hurt the future for a mediocre present.
“If you (go all in) again, you’ve got to know that you’re a team that has a good chance to have a deep run,” Neely said. “You don’t want to go all-in and then not really feel confident that you’re going to have a deep run.”
Marchand is unsigned for next year and turns 37 in May. If the Bruins chose to move him to a contender, he’d likely bring back some pieces for the future from team that thinks it can win a Stanley Cup.
SportsNet Canada listed Marchand at No. 5 on their best available trade chips. But for the Bruins, it would mean removing a leader and one of the cornerstone pieces of the team’s culture.
The Bruins weren’t sentimental when they let Zdeno Chara go when he wanted to stay. Would they do the same with Marchand?
If there’s friction between him and Sacco or if the team thinks his play is slipping that could certainly change the decision-making process.
The next few weeks will be critical to convincing Neely and Don Sweeney one way or the other. The looming pressure from that will be its own distraction. Clearing up whatever happened on Saturday could keep it from getting worse.
Follow MassLive sports columnist Matt Vautour on Twitter at @MattVautour424.
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