Once known as one of the NHL’s most infamous agitators, the Boston forward has blossomed into an offensive force – and quietly entered the MVP conversation

Brad Marchand didn’t like the look of what he saw. The 5ft 9in forward walked into the visitor’s dressing room at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto with his Boston Bruins hat pulled low over his face. He tried to get to his locker beside Patrice Bergeron as the hordes of hockey-hungry media in Toronto grilled his teammate.

“Nope,” Marchand said, in a declarative sense, when he got to his stall. He dipped back out again, away from from the thirsty mob.

The NHL's playoff mess: a handy guide to hockey's latest controversy Read more

Brad Marchand was once solely known as the league’s biggest pest but is now rubbing shoulders with Sidney Crosby and Patrick Kane and is fourth in the NHL’s scoring race. You’d think Marchand has undergone an incredible transition as a player but he’s still the same player he ever was: ducking and diving and doing things his own way.

His 80 points in 75 games this season is by far a career high. Through the tumultuous season the Bruins have endured, including a coaching change last month, Marchand has become a reliable offensive force. He’s only once gone more than two games throughout the season without registering a point and was named the NHL’s 1st Star last week after putting up nine points in three games during a western Canada road trip.

“Lately, he’s just a guy that’s determined to score every time he gets the puck,” said Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy.

Cassidy would continue in his assessment of Marchand, who has quietly entered the conversation for the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s MVP, by stating the obvious: even as Marchand continues to rack up points at an unprecedented pace, he continues to be an effective two-way, 200-foot player as well as being one of the Bruins best penalty killers.

Marchand credited being able to play with David Pastrnak and Patrice Bergeron as one reason for his offensive breakout. He’s onto something: according to Corsica Hockey, among lines that have played a minimum of 500 5-on-5 minutes together this season, that trio are best in the NHL in Corsi For% (63.07%) a metric used to measure possession.

“I’m just kind of feeding off those guys,” said Marchand.

Marchand’s 37 goals and 61 points last season, both career highs, certainly turned heads around the league considering the general estimation of Marchand as a player was more about his pervasive pest-like behavior more than his scoring touch.

His play last season led to him being selected to play for Team Canada at last fall’s World Cup of Hockey and ultimately, his inclusion on the team’s top line along with Bergeron and the best player in the world, Sidney Crosby.

Marchand would finish second in tournament scoring and would score a short-handed goal with less than a minute remaining in the final that would give Canada the championship.

That moment on the world stage has since catapulted Marchand into where he is now: the Bruins are now fighting with the Leafs for the final Atlantic Division playoff spot and Marchand is leading the offensive charge.

Last week, Maple Leafs and Team Canada coach Mike Babcock wished he hadn’t played Marchand on a line with Bergeron and Crosby.

“I should have played him on the fifth line,” said Babcock. “Sucked a little life out of him.”

If the Bruins do indeed beat out the Leafs for that playoff spot, it could be because of Marchand’s offensive charge.

“(Babcock) better remember that when the Olympics come around this year,” Marchand joked this week.

So yes, there’s still a healthy amount of swagger, confidence and playfulness in Marchand. He’s still likely viewed by many fans around the league as the same rat of a player that he always was.

And he still couldn’t be bothered to fall in line with a league whose biggest stars present public personas that are all just different shades of vanilla.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Marchand celebrates a goal against Vancouver in a March game. Photograph: Anne-Marie Sorvin/USA Today Sports

Take, for example, Marchand’s response after being asked to comment on Bruins legend Bobby Orr’s 69th birthday.

“Great age, great year,” he said, invoking his fellow Boston athlete Rob Gronkowski and his numerous 69 jokes.

Midway through a recent game against the Leafs, Marchand’s season was summed up in one short sequence of events: he drove hard to the Leafs net, executed an artful deke to get in close against Leafs goalie Frederik Andersen and made contact with him. He then engaged in a heated melee with Leafs forward Leo Komarov and after returning to his bench, offered a world-class chirp and said he’d sign and send Komarov a stick after the game.

This is the same Marchand who committed two dangerous slewfoot infractions within days of each other in January, one of which he was fined $10,000.

And while that may draw the ire of many, in an age when single-tooled NHL players are being run out of the league by more complete players who have a multi-tooled arsenal, Marchand isn’t just walking the fine line between pest and scorer: he’s handling them both with apparent ease.

“You have to stand up for yourself,” said Leaf forward Brian Boyle, who has matched up against Marchand many times, also with the New York Rangers and the Tampa Bay Lightning. “But he brings it on himself.”

Former Leaf and current Bruin John-Michael Liles understands how much Marchand can get under a player’s skin but also how much he means to the Bruins.

“He’s a guy that you hate playing against but you love having on your team,” said Liles. “That’s one of the things I’ve learned playing with Brad: he comes to the rink every day wanting to get better.”

Leafs forward Nazem Kadri, who has been tasked with shutting down Marchand’s line through their four games against each other this year said that Marchand’s has offensive talent has never really changed, but that he’s just getting “some puck luck” this season. Kadri would go on to say that Marchand has “Come a long way.”

Kadri is an interesting comparable. He entered the NHL on a much different trajectory than Marchand, as that of a gifted offensive threat. But this season he’s transformed his game and has become more a shutdown centre.

As such, he understands what goes into a player’s transformation.

“You want to play a 200-foot game,” he said. “You want to be a complete player. Playing on both sides of the ice and the neutral zone is a part of that. You start to understand that once you’re good and sound defensively, you start to generate more offensive opportunities.”

Perhaps the skill has always been there through Marchand’s previous seven NHL seasons. But the surroundings, including a new coach and new linemates have changed.

“It’s just an area of his game that’s grown,” Cassidy said of Marchand’s newfound scoring touch. “He could always shoot (The puck), he could always finish but now you see him making more plays.”

“Not much else to say,” Cassidy would conclude. “He’s got a complete game, and he’s hot.”

If that sounds overly simple, it’s because it is. Brad Marchand is the same Brad Marchand the hockey world has come to know and either love or hate. He hasn’t had to sacrifice one element of his game to improve another.

Adapt or die, as they say. And Brad Marchand is alive and well.