Boston Bruins winger Brad Marchand is not too happy that the NHL is cracking down on nitpicky faceoff violations. This pre-season so far we have seen a record amount of penalties right off of the draw that is a real buzz kill to the game. It is pretty clear that the league wants to enforce these rules more as they are not new rules they have been around for a long time now but this season it looks like they will be called more than ever. The faceoff penlites we have seen so far include failing to line up properly, playing the puck with your hand, and even the small slashes after the drop.
Marchand spoke after Tuesday’s practice when the topic came up and he said “This faceoff rule is an absolute joke, that’s how you ruin the game of hockey, by putting that in there. They’re gonna have to do something about that because we can’t play this year like that.”
He did not stop there as it clearly hit nerve he also said “It seems like every year they’re making huge changes, and I know they’re trying to add a little more offense to the game and make it a little more exciting, but you don’t want to ruin the game, and that’s frustrating for everyone, I know a lot of people that I’ve spoken to over the last few days have stopped watching games because it’s so been so annoying dealing with the new changes. You can make changes and try to better the game, but you can’t put [rules] in that ruin it.”
So clearly Marchand is not a big fan of the new rule enforcement and neither is head coach Bruce Cassidy who also spoke about it saying “There’s obviously an initiative out there to kind of get rid of all the shenanigans that go on before the draw, there is certainly some gamesmanship there that we’re gonna have to find, and I think the fine line of allowing guys to at least get in there, because it is the original battle of every play, so there’s gonna be a little bit of digging in.”
So will NHL referees continue to call these penalties come the start of the regular season? I sure hope not. The Bruins will be playing the Red Wings in their second pre-seaosn game tonight at the TD Garden.
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