The Boston Bruins have had plenty of points this season, having already gone by means of a training change and now discovering themselves teetering on the Japanese Convention playoff bubble.
One other potential problem surfaced on Friday when a report from WEEI’s Wealthy Keefe suggested that there was a major issue in the Bruins locker room between star forwards David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand, with Pastrnak — in line with the report — now not desirous to play on a line with Marchand.
Marchand wasted no time in firing again when requested concerning the report and emphatically denied any rift between the 2 stars.
He additionally had extraordinarily harsh phrases for Keefe in an prolonged rant about his credibility and trustworthiness as a reporter.
“I do know reporters have a job to do and that job is to report on the crew,” Marchand said. “Normally, you attempt to be fact-based. However when there’s simply blatant lies informed within the media, that’s the place there’s an issue. The very fact this man has a platform and is simply making this up is embarrassing. There’s zero fact to something he mentioned. That is the way you lose a job in a short time. The truth that he’s gonna have a job after that is insane.”
Marchand went on to say that Pastrnak is likely one of the most beloved gamers within the locker room and that there’s zero fact to him being an issue.
He completed by saying this:
“It’s very irritating as a result of that is what occurs — we’ve got not pulled our weight this 12 months,” Marchand continued. “We have now not had the season we wish to have. However I’m not gonna let some random man come within the media and spit absolute nonsense. From this level ahead, this man has zero credibility.”
That’s about as emphatic as a dismissal as you will get from a participant concerning some form of locker room turmoil.
This all comes a day after the Bruins had been on the dropping finish of a 4-1 choice towards the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday evening to increase their dropping streak to 6 consecutive video games. They’ve additionally misplaced seven of their previous eight video games and discover themselves within the backside half of the league standings. Their total factors share is twenty second within the NHL and regardless that they’re holding a Wild Card spot within the Japanese Convention, that’s principally as a result of they’ve performed extra video games than many of the different groups they’re competing with. By factors share there would presently be 4 groups forward of them for a playoff spot.
Pastrnak and Marchand don’t all the time play on the identical line however have spent in depth time alongside each other over the previous six years. Once they have performed collectively they’re sometimes probably the most productive duos within the league, as each have top-line offensive expertise and Marchand performs an excellent two-way sport.
They haven’t been nearly as good this season as a duo or individually. However no person in Boston has performed as much as expectations this season. When the crew struggles, that’s when rumors and hypothesis begin.
Whether or not there truly is a few form of problem inside the locker room is secondary to the actual fact the crew simply is not so good as it was. They by no means adequately changed high facilities Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci following their retirements, they don’t rating sufficient objectives as a crew, and beginning goalie Jeremy Swayman has not performed as much as expectations (or his contract) in his first 12 months as a full-time starter. These are considerably larger points the Bruins want to fret about fixing.
