Fair or not, Brad Marchand’s checkered past will always skew his reputation around league

Brad Marchand is fully cognizant of the red etched into his ledger.

Try as he might to put his past in the rearview mirror, the sentiment surrounding the 33-year-old winger in most league circles is about as accommodating and warm as a jab right to Daniel Sedin’s skull. 

Entering Monday night, it’d been almost four full years since Marchand incurred the wrath of the NHL’s Department of Player Safety. 

But his reputation as the fine-line-towing, fly-in-the-ointment pest that used Sedin’s face as a speedbag and racked up six suspensions over his first nine seasons in the league continues to endure — even as his game has elevated beyond his prior standing as a middle-six agitator.

As such, it came as little surprise to Marchand when the league brought up his pock-marked past before doling out a three-game suspension for slew-footing Oliver Ekman-Larsson on Sunday.  

“They expressed that,” Marchand said Tuesday morning at Warrior Ice Arena. “That’s part of the conversation, it always will be, which I get. I’m not oblivious to my past and I don’t deny that it’s there and say that I deserved everything that was there. But it will always, in these hearings, it will always be brought up.

“I was just personally hoping that it wouldn’t be because I’ve worked to get away from that and be a good player. I was hoping it wouldn’t be part of it and I’d be given the benefit of the doubt. But that’s not up for me to decide. I’m not going to criticize them. They’re doing their job and doing it the way they feel is fit. I was just caught a little off guard because of, again, how things have been dealt with recently. I was hoping it would be dealt that way, and not because of my previous history.”

Marchand’s sentiments were shared by his friend and captain in Patrice Bergeron — who has been at the forefront of Marchand’s efforts to shed his heel persona. 

“Let’s remember that Marchy has been close to four years now without any suspension," Bergeron said. "In that timeframe, he's become one of the best players in the league and an elite player and a leader. And that's what we have to remember, not what happened before. I agree, there's been some things that he needed to change. I think he made those changes.”

Still, even though both Marchand and Bergeron noted similar infractions committed earlier this season resulted in a more lenient sentence from the league (Kevin Labanc was suspended one game for a slew-foot incident earlier this month), Marchand’s prior rap sheet still stands at the forefront whenever the league office comes calling.

Some vestiges of his old trouble-making ways are still present both on and off the ice. Even though he’s more inclined to make his mark on a game by way of an O-zone danglefest or a sweet saucer feed on the power play, Marchand is never one to shy away from dropping a heavy check.

He’s always primed to drop a quick retort and wisecrack if you’re not careful during a press scrum. For two years straight, Marchand was voted by his fellow peers as both the best — and worst — trash talker in the game.  

But at this stage of his career, Marchand is well aware of the legacy he’s cultivated for himself — and how he wants to be remembered when he finally does hang up his skates. 

Marchand’s antics against the Canucks, his warpath through Boston following the B’s Cup win, licking both Ryan Callahan and Leo Komarov and more tales will always be brought up in jest among fans reminiscing about No. 63 at Sullivan’s Tap.

But Marchand would much rather the narrative surrounding him focus on the player he is today — a potential Hart-Trophy candidate who has evolved from fourth-line goon into one of the pillars of an Original Six franchise. 

But much to his chagrin, the narrative will always be muddled when it comes to sizing up his complicated legacy in this game.  

“I have tried extremely hard over the last four years to get away from the reputation I’ve had, I think I’ve done an extremely good job at that,” Marchand said. “I know early on I crossed over the line a lot of times, and it’s unfortunate that it continues to haunt me. It’s 310-plus games, almost four years of good, hard — I mean, I play hard, there’s no question, and I compete.  

“But I am no longer the player that I was, and that I felt like I had to be in order to establish myself. So I was hoping at this point that they would’ve seen past what’s gone on before that. … I feel like I’ve completely transformed myself from the player I was to a player that should be respected in this league for his abilities.

"But again, I understand completely the history that I have, and I was just hoping that they would’ve seen past that, and obviously that wasn’t the case.” 

Marchand comments on Panarin incident

While most of Marchand’s presser on Tuesday revolved around his slew-footing incident with Ekman-Larsson, he also shed some new light on his run-in with New York’s Artemi Panarin last Friday — with the Rangers winger tossing his glove at Marchand after a last-minute spat.

Shortly after the incident, Panarin said that he lost his cool due to Marchand bringing up Russia and his complicated history with his home country, namely his criticism of Vladimir Putin and his administration.  

Marchand confirmed Panarin’s comments in regards to what he said to the Rangers star. 

“I said that no one in Russia likes him,” Marchand said. “So, if that is now what is setting guys over the edge, then this is the softest league in the world and nobody should be allowed to say anything because there’s a lot worse things said out there than that. So, [if] that’s what he’s crying about, then it is what it is.”