Boston Bruins

Bruins clinch playoffs, but may lose Brad Marchand to suspension
April 5, 2017, 1:33 PM ET [92 Comments]
Ty Anderson
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The two-season nightmare is over for the Boston Bruins: They’re going back to the playoffs.

In a win-and-you’re-in situation on Tuesday night against the Tampa Bay Lightning (a situation that’s brought the Bruins nothing but pain over the last two seasons), the Bruins did just that, and did it with the ‘next man up’ philosophy early and often, along with the answering of the bell that has become the team’s calling card under interim head coach Bruce Cassidy.

The Bruins lost Brad Marchand for the night (and likely longer) late in the first period when the Bruins’ leading scorer reverted to his old ways with a straight-up selfish and stupidly unnecessary spear to the privates of Lightning defender Jake Dotchin. Assessed a five-minute major and tossed from the game, it put the Bruins in a situation where they were beginning the second period with 4:20 of penalty time to be killed off against the league’s fourth-best power play unit. In a 0-0 game, it could have spelled the end, especially with the way Nikita Kucherov and the Bolts torched the B’s last time around.

But the Bruins dug their heels in, went to work, and held the Bolts to just two shots on that power play, and with the best chance coming with Dominic Moore’s end-to-end rush against Tampa.

“It’s a game changer,” Cassidy said of the club’s penalty kill in that period (and really all year). “If they get momentum there and then all the sudden, doubt creeps into your head for a number of different reasons, so we’ll just keep it to the simple fact that we’ve been good on the kill all year. It’s come through for us in crucial times, and tonight, there was no bigger time for us. And I thought we did a really good job moving people through, mixed up the pairs up front, D got our clears, Tuukka [Rask] made the saves when he had to, but for the most part, we kept ourselves fresh.”

The Bruins immediately built off those kills with second period goals from Drew Stafford and David Pastrnak, while Rask made 17 stops in a period that featured 37 shots between the teams.

That carried over into the third period, too, as Zdeno Chara delivered the unofficially official killshot to the Bolts’ playoff hopes with a power-play goal to put the B’s up 3-0 in what finished as a 4-0 final.

Chara’s celebration was that of a leader that’s been waiting to return to the playoffs for far too long.

“We know what it takes. We know how hard it is to get into the postseason. It’s not easy, but once you get there, anything is possible and it’s a lot of fun when you get on a roll and when you’re winning,” the 40-year-old captain said after the win. “So, obviously, that was a huge motivation that we wanted to pass on and implement in this locker room to start and embrace that identity and start playing that way. Playing to our strengths and the way we’re capable of and it’s very effective.”

And though he was given four goals of support in total, this game has to come back to some massive stops from the 30-year-old Rask. Since he was ‘called out’ by Cassidy following a 23-of-28 performance against the Bolts on Mar. 23, Rask has been dialed in and then some, and was once again for a career-high eighth shutout. He’s allowed just three goals and is battling pucks and making stop after stop in his last four starts, too, which have all been wins for the Black and Gold.

This could change everything for the B’s if it carries over into the playoffs.

But now the situation with Marchand looms over the Bruins.

Marchand admitted that his penalty was ‘undisciplined’ and called it a ‘reactionary play’ after the game, but still faces supplemental discipline from the league, as he has been confirmed for a Thursday morning hearing with the league’s Department of Player Safety. This is his second run-in with them this year, as he was fined $10,000 earlier this season for a slewfoot on the Red Wings’ Niklas Kronwall. Marchand has been suspended four times since the start of the 2010 season.



Speaking to a league source, it would seem likely that Marchand will be suspended for the final two games of the regular season. Repeat offender or not, the sense I get is that you should not expect to see him suspended into the playoffs. I’ve been wrong before, of course, but worth noting, especially with Marchand’s newly found star power as one of the league’s top scorers.

Up next

The Bruins are clinched, but they’re still going to make a push for seeding, which is why you’re going to see Rask back in net on Thursday night against the Senators. A potential first-round opponent for the Bruins, the Sens have taken all three head-to-heads with the B’s this season.