Ryan: With shorthanded Bruins ‘against the rope’, Brad Marchand picked a great time to deliver masterclass performance

It’s not easy to summarize a player as complicated, polarizing and enthralling as Brad Marchand in just a few words. 

Hell, not even a succinct graf would do the job of chronicling the fourth-line pest who became a star — and still manages to vex 44 other states, 31 NHL teams and 13 provinces, year in and year out.

So if a few words won’t cut it for the closest thing the NHL has to a star WWE heel, perhaps a video will suffice?

Because what better way to encapsulate Marchand’s unique knack for both thrilling B’s fans and bugging the bejesus out of the opposition than the winger’s empty-net goal on Sunday afternoon.

It had everything one needed to put an emphatic stamp on a signature Marchand showcase. 

There was the empty-net tally — a dagger delivered by Marchand that capped off a five-point afternoon and an eight-point surge over Boston’s last two wins against Carolina.

There was the empathic roar of the TD Garden crowd — a sea of black and gold who have seen the 33-year-old winger serve as an on-ice dose of epinephrine for the B's countless times before.

And, in fitting fashion, you had a foe whose mental fortitude was eroded by way of a furious volley of chirps and dangles — with Tony DeAngelo blowing a gasket and tossing his twig at the B’s forward in an ill-advised attempt at preventing Marchand’s finishing blow.

It was a chaotic, bombastic and endlessly amusing sequence to cap off Boston’s 5-2 win in a momentum-shifting Game 4.

In other words, a classic Marchand-orchestrated spectacle. 

“It's just who he is,” Patrice Bergeron said of his long-time linemate. “I think he's always finding a way to get better and takes it upon himself to help a team in any way. And he always rises up to the occasion every time there's a big moment.”

If there was ever a time for Boston to need a signature game from Marchand, it was on Sunday afternoon.

With Boston taking to the ice without both of its top-pairing blueliners in Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm on Sunday, the odds weren’t exactly in the B’s favor when it came to stemming the tide from one of the Hurricanes’ storm surges.

As expected, Marchand was quick to deflect some of the praise heading his way postgame, noting that the B’s managed to counter Carolina as a full-team unit,  especially a six-man D corps that was led by Connor Clifton in terms of ice time.  

But when the time came to actually do some damage in the offensive zone, Marchand and Boston’s big guns delivered in Game 4 — with Marchand factoring into all five tallies in what stood as his 34th career postseason multi-point game. Only Nikita Kucherov (37) has accumulated more since Marchand first made his postseason debut in 2011. 

"We didn't have a choice,” Marchand said of Boston’s response on Sunday without both McAvoy and Lindholm. “I mean, we're playing for our season. And yeah, it's really tough when you lose guys like them — they're great players and they play big minutes. But it doesn't mean you can roll over and fold. And there's a lot of pride in the room and a lot of character, we've always shown that.

After a lackluster end to the regular season in which Marchand only buried one 5v5 goal from April 2 through to the start of the playoffs — Marchand has now given the B’s leads they would not relinquish in back-to-back games, flipping the script against a Hurricanes team that starts to look awfully mortal when chasing the score.

And as Marchand and that reunited top line (which has now outscored Carolina, 4-0, in just 18:44 of 5v5 ice time since Game 2) diced up Carolina in their own end, Marchand went to work at unraveling players like DeAngelo — bringing up the Canes’ defenseman’s … troubled track record ... during an exchange of pleasantries at the end of the first period. 

“Just saying hi - ‘How was your Mother’s Day,'" Marchand declared with a straight face when asked about his exchange with DeAngelo.

It shouldn't necessarily come as a surprise that Marchand’s late-season lull has been undone since the calendar has flipped to May. It didn’t for his coach, with Bruce Cassidy noting that the left wing seems to have a habit of elevating his game under the “bright lights” of the postseason.

For Marchand, the correlation between his play and the stakes involved seems rather evident. 

There may not be any brief collection of words that can sum up Marchand’s checkered reputation and impressive career.

 But a photo of the most polarizing man in hockey hoisting the Cup once again? Well, that speaks for itself. 

“This is what every kid (wants) — hoping to get that opportunity that is playing for that Cup,” Marchand said. “When you’re in playoff time and your backs are against the rope and it’s do or die — you have to leave everything out there. These are the most fun games to play in, when there’s high emotion, high intensity and so much riding on the line. If you can’t play in these games, what are you playing for? 

This is what we love and always loved. …It’s kind of hard to explain. We love the challenge of being in the playoffs and being in tough situations. It doesn’t always go your way. But when it does, it’s a hell of a feeling.”