Brad Marchand Enjoys Unique Career First In Panthers’ Series-Tying Win
Brad Marchand has played a lot of springtime hockey, so it’s hard to fathom the man born on May 11 had never played an NHL game on his birthday — until Sunday.
Marchand celebrated his 37th birthday by helping the Florida Panthers pick up a massive series-tying win against the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Cats had their best game of the series, suffocating the high-powered Leafs in a 2-0 win that evened the Stanley Cup playoffs second-round series at two games apiece.
As TNT pointed out during Marchand’s postgame interview, it was the first time he’s ever played on his birthday. It’s hard to fathom, considering Sunday night was the 166th career playoff game of Marchand’s career. Even Marchand questioned the stat, but a look at the game logs seems to prove as much (the May 10, 12-13 run in 2013 is pretty wild, though).
Marchand has really made an impact on his new team in this series against his longtime nemesis. The former Bruins captain scored the game-winning goal in overtime in Game 3 and was a factor in other ways in Game 4 on Sunday night with 22 minutes of ice time.
To the surprise of no one, Marchand also found himself in the middle of some late-game scrappyness.
Marchand picked up a 10-minute misconduct at the 20-minute mark of the first period for his role in a melee that ensued from Toronto’s Max Domi cheap-shotting Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov. With a whole bunch of pushing and shoving going on around him, Marchand and Toronto’s Bobby McMann paired off briefly, with Marchand’s gloves going flying as he tried to get at the Leafs defenseman.
The rough stuff begins at the 5:27 mark below:
When everything was settled, 35 penalty minutes were distributed, including a five-minute major for Domi.
That might not be the end of things, though. Florida’s Matthew Tkachuk was seen yapping at Leafs star forward William Nylander, essentially warning him about potential Game 5 revenge.
The series shifts back to Toronto for Game 5 on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. ET.