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Brad Marchand “spear” on Jake McCabe – Tough Call Review



Brad Marchand fell victim to a crosscheck from Jake McCabe, who had also just crosschecked Jake DeBrusk seconds before that. Marchand’s stick does poke McCabe in the midsection, but was it really a spear?

33 Comments

  1. Finally a rational opinion on the play, not the typical Leaf delusional input. It was inadvertent, same as the collision with Knies.

  2. If it was anybody else but Marchand I would absolutely agree that it is accidental, however knowing who he is, it's hard to keep giving him the benefit of the doubt. It doesn't justify the flagrant retaliatory crosscheck, but it puts it into perspective as Marchand is known for being a dirty player. I am not a fan of either of these teams, neither am I a hater, but everybody is in the wrong here.

  3. Thank you for reading Marchand's mind. His stick action indicated a zero attempt to play the puck as you claim. I've watched Marchand for years. A very talented forward with a screw loose. He is a pure bred rat & my take on the sequence is that he was trying to jam his stick into someone. It appears his stick was in close proximity to McCabe's pills & so he quite rightly, filled in Marchand. I confess, seeing Marchand hammered multiple times in the game warmed my heart. He has injured a lot of players over his career.

  4. It looks like an intentional hook/hold that ends up being a spear, if you're going for the stick you don't do it at the midsection while spinning. The problem is Marchand's history tends to suggest that he doesn't do things "by mistake". I think anyone else and it's not even really a question but with him…when you're known for being dirty/nasty it's tough to give the benefit of the doubt.

  5. the puck is on the ice , his stick is not on the ice , weird chances he will touch the puck with his stick off the ice , near impossible to play the puck with your stick off the ice. Maybe he planned on kicking the puck soccer style ?

  6. As a Bruins fan who has watched him his whole career, there's little question in my mind Marchand did it on purpose. Very few things he does are by accident.

  7. Dude this is Brad Marchand , have you ever watched him play before?
    Nothing he does to be a pest is an accident , he loves to to be a rat!
    He was going after the puck which was on the ice and his stick was at um jock level oddly weird, is this some troll to try get reactions to your awful take?

  8. Next you will tell me his hit on Knies was accidental and he also left his feet on that hit but ya that was an accident too?

  9. It's not a tough call. It was intentional as usual, just like the hit on knies.. You're an obvious Bruins fan. I would celebrate if someone took him out and he never played again.

  10. You are crazy if you think Marchand did this by accident. He has his head turned towards McCabe and there's this thing called peripheral vision. He knew what he was doing and put his stick exactly where he intended.

  11. Omg …really? Puck focused? Why is his stick up into the midsection of an opposing player? Isn't the puck on the ice?

  12. If I make a pie and the same guy always eats it, you bet your ass that if the pie goes missing near him he took it. The same goes for Marchand

  13. “Just inadvertent contact”, the same way you determined his hit that put Knies out of the same game was?
    There’s a pattern here with Marchand, he has a long history of this kind of shit.
    Earlier this year he took Liljegren’s feet out from behind as he went into the boards (causing him to spend almost two months on LTIR), but the league ruled once again that there was no intent.

    Oh please… he’s slew footed more guys any other player in the league, there’s nobody remotely close to him for that dubious honour, but the Liljegren incident was just an unfortunate accident?

    He’s a dirty, cheap shot artist, and he’s the master at making it look like an accident.
    He should never, ever be given the benefit of the doubt again.

  14. Reading these comments, it's almost unanimous it was intentional. You have people in the NHL that act like what they do is an accident, or that they don't know the rules. These guys play hockey all their lives and there ain't no way that they don't know what they doing on the ice. I get that almost every play every game is different. But they've been in these situations time and time again and for real, they know what they thinking. It's split second decisions and sometimes it works out sometimes it don't work as they've planned in their head. Doing a spin and a hook to the upper mid section, what the hell was he thinking was gonna happen? Shot to the chiclets two minute high sticking call?

  15. yeah, his stick has no real reason to go with force there, except there happens to be another player there, so he takes the opportunity…..

  16. He whipped his stick around knowing he was going to hit someone, somewhere…ot wasn't even on the ice so you can't say he was tying to sweep for the puck. He knew simple minds would see it as an accident just like the obvious can opener/slewfoot he used to put Lillegren out.

  17. I totally disagree that the spear was accidental. In my opinion, I think Marchand was going for Matthews and his stick hit McCabe first. But the flex in the stick shows he was using a lot of force.

  18. Next time not neck. Go teeth and act like the hottest chick in the gym is watching you bench press and you wanna press, clap, and catch. Then you get the crosscheck we all want

  19. Let's ask The Lilly Pad if Marchant's slew foot was just incidental at the start of this season. Let's check back on Marchant's quaint historical record of all the times he's incidentally injured others. Seems the stick 3 feet off the ice and inside McCabe's pants suggests he was searching for something other than the puck. Marchant is that devious.

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