A statement was just issued about Marchand being the "problem" for the Bruins
The Boston Bruins have a scoring, defense, goaltending, and head coach problem. Is it systemic? Arguably, it is a Brad Marchand problem solely?
No. Not according to fans on X, as many have taken to blame the Bruins Captain who is still trying to find his game. The Captain had multiple surgeries during the offseason.
He's not superhuman, and didn't construct the team, or the offensive system, so why is he getting a lot of flak lately?
Marchand's slow start is understandable, given his past injury issues. He contributed 2 points( 1 G, 1 A) tonight in the shut-out against the Philadelphia Flyers like a Captain should leading the way.
Marchand has scored 9 points( 3 G, 6 A) in 12 games this season which sounds reasonable to me.
Expecting your bottom six forwards to play like Elias Lindholm, Pavel Zacha, and David Pastrnak do is unrealistic.
Especially if one of them is Mark Kastelic, who while we enjoy seeing him produce 7 points( 3 G, 4 A) in 12 games is nice. But is he a career top-six forward? That has yet to be proven.
Montgomery has blame to share in this issue as he has shuffled the lines around too much. Whatever chemistry the team had is now broken, and was an issue for the Bruins.
This was one solid win against the Flyers, but can they build upon these positive results?
Get back to us with criticism of Marchand, when it comes to the postseason, to the end of the year when he should be wielding his influence more and more.
Thankfully, looking at the lines on DailyFaceOff it looks like the blender has shut off and the team looks how it should.
With a 5-6-1 record, the Bruins need to grab ahold of what worked and run with if now.
