BRIGHTON – It appears that Sam Bennett is not going to face any supplemental discipline for the predatory hit he threw on Brad Marchand that knocked him out of Game 3 with an upper-body injury. At first blush it appeared to be a simple collision between the two players in the first period of the 6-2 loss for the Bruins, but further, tighter reviews of the replays showed Bennett clocked Marchand in the jaw with a closed right-handed fist while still holding the butt end of his stick.
It truly is crazy how Bennett does throw that fist/butt end into Marchand’s head here. I can’t believe TNT didn’t pick up on this. I know it would’ve been headline central if roles were reversed pic.twitter.com/7VvL9C40il
— Bradley (@BradIey98) May 11, 2024
Marchand missed the third period of Game 3 and wasn’t present at Saturday morning’s practice at Warrior Ice Arena ahead of Sunday’s Game 4 against the Florida Panthers. Bennett will undoubtedly suit up for Game 4 while Marchand will probably miss the game with his upper body injury, and Jim Montgomery expressed some surprise that Bennett was going to get off the incident scot-free after doing something similar to Matthew Knies last spring during their playoff series against the Maple Leafs.
this looks familiar for some reasonpic.twitter.com/kvxrJ71Bdv
— PrimeTime Brett (@bretthoward_) May 11, 2024
“In real time, I gotta be honest, my eyes weren’t on there; the puck had left that area, so my eyes weren’t on the exact play,” said Montgomery. “But having seen it, there’s a history there with Bennett. Good, hard player. But there’s clearly evidence of what went on. People can say it wasn’t intentional, but we have our view of it.”
The official status given for Marchand was “day-to-day” with an upper-body injury, but it sure sounded like the Bruins were preparing to go without him in a hugely important game to try and avoid going back to Florida down 3-to-1 in the best-of-seven series.
“You never want to see someone go down and not be able to come back, especially a guy who’s your leader and your best player. You want everyone to be healthy and everyone chip in, but it’s an opportunity to step up and we can do that,” said Charlie Coyle. “You see Toronto do that against us earlier with [Auston] Matthews out, they come together and throw together a couple good games without him. It’s just an opportunity for us.
“I think you’ll see guys take on more responsibility and opportunity and rise to that occasion. We do it together and we want to play for guys who are out of the lineup and can’t be in there or wish they could be in there. That’s why we play out there, we play for each other and that’s something we’re gonna do [on Sunday].”
Things were radically changed up with Marchand out of the lineup as Jake DeBrusk and David Pastrnak were slotted together with Morgan Geekie, and Pavel Zacha moved into a second line center role with Justin Brazeau and James van Riemsdyk. Coyle was moved back down to a third line center position which may be a way to rekindle his game with Trent Frederic and Danton Heinen returning from injury.
But there’s little doubt that the presence of No. 63 is going to be missed for as long as the captain is out after the sneaky right-handed Bennett punch to his head that went completely unpunished by the NHL.
ONE-TIMERS
*Danton Heinen has not played since Game 5 of the first-round series against the Maple Leafs after playing through a nagging injury. Heinen has been getting better each day and practiced on a line with Trent Frederic and Coyle at Saturday’s practice as he looks like a potential option for Sunday’s Game 4 against the Panthers.
“I feel good, feel good,” said Heinen. “That’s the toughest part is watching the guys go to battle and not being able to be out there and try to help. It’s a lot harder to watch than be out there battling. It’s tough.”
Montgomery said his availability for Game 4 will depend on how the versatile winger responds to a full practice workload on Saturday after working his way back from the undisclosed injury.
*It didn’t look like there were going to be any changes to the defense pairings based on Saturday’s practice after Andrew Peeke and Derek Forbort played together as a pairing for the first time this season. Peeke was a plus-1 in 16:28 of ice time with a pair of hits and blocked shots after getting dropped into the playoff action and Forbort was okay in roughly similar amount of ice time, though he was on ice for a Florida power play goal after he couldn’t clear the puck after fighting to be all alone with it behind the Boston net.
*Happy 36th birthday to Brad Marchand. Hopefully he’ll be able to celebrate it with a return to playoff action for the Bruins once his upper body injury clears up following that controversial hit from Bennett.
Happy Birthday, Marchy 🎂 pic.twitter.com/K9KtyifSqo
— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) May 11, 2024