Boston Bruins Marchand Will Have NHL Hearing For Slew-foot

Boston Bruins winger Brad Marchand willed his team to victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Sunday night with an epic third period performance that included playing a key role in the goals that tied it up and eventually gave Boston a 3-2 come-from-behind victory.

It appears there may be a price to pay for that victory, however, as Brad Marchand will have a hearing with the NHL Department of Player Safety over a first period slewfoot involving Vancouver defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson during Sunday’s game.

pic.twitter.com/9BhF23kpkh

— NHL News (@PuckReportNHL) November 29, 2021

Clearly Marchand was playing with some attitude in Sunday’s game while leading the charge physically with five hits and five blocked shots to go along with his third period offensive fireworks, and it worked as No. 63 dragged the Boston Bruins into the fight. Marchand had something going with Oliver Ekman-Larsson for most of the night, including this clean, punishing hit behind the Vancouver net while on the forecheck.

Brad Marchand introduces himself to Oliver Ekman-Larsson: pic.twitter.com/lxy4dgrE7N

— Evan Marinofsky (@EvanMarinofsky) November 29, 2021

But it does appear in the video that Marchand engages in a slewfoot with Ekman-Larsson while kicking his leg out underneath him and pushing him backward as both players were tied up together. Marchand has actually gone several seasons without being suspended by the NHL at this point, but he has been both fined and suspended for prior slewfooting incidents earlier in his career.

This all also comes on the heels of Marchand’s back-and-forth with Artemi Panarin last week where the Russian winger fired a glove at the Bruins forward on the bench after he allegedly made some disparaging comments about his popularity in his native Russia. As always with Marchand he’s at his best when he’s completely engaged emotionally, but there’s always that danger that the emotions can go over the edge and cost him in terms of supplementary discipline from the league.

The easy argument from Boston Bruins fans, of course, is that the NHL has largely been looking the other way all season while PK Subban has been slew-footing opponents seemingly every other week without much supplemental discipline being thrown his way. Something stiffer than a fine may be the case here as a phone hearing with Player Safety normally results in a suspension of something less than five games when it’s all said and done.