Breaking Down Wild Scene Leading To Brad Marchand Game 1 Ejection

Brad Marchand got an early shower Tuesday night in Game 1 of the Panthers’ Eastern Conference finals series with the Hurricanes.

Referees handed Marchand a game misconduct midway through the third period of the series opener, a game he and the Panthers dominated from the jump. The red-hot Panthers cruised to a 5-2 win in Carolina, and did so without Marchand for much of the third.

While Marchand is used to being sent to the principal’s office, even in the playoffs, it’s hard to blame him for what happened. Upon further review, Marchand was more than justified for going after Hurricanes defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere.

The sequence of events started along the nearside boards when Marchand tried to lay a big hit on Gostisbehere. The veteran blueliner side-stepped the hit but apparently took a number.

Seconds later, with Gostisbehere carrying the puck up ice and Marchand no more than 10 feet away, Gostisbehere fired the puck at Marchand, presumably trying to disguise it as a dump-in. It wasn’t a very good job of camouflaging, though; Gostisbehere wound up and fired despite being behind the red line.

Marchand responded by jumping Gostisbehere, and even though Gostisbehere willingly obliged but failed to drop his gloves — and just missed knocking Marchand’s head clean off his shoulders — Marchand was given the misconduct penalty.

Gostisbehere somehow skated away with just a minor penalty, while Marchand got a pair of roughing minors plus the misconduct.

Panthers head coach Paul Maurice kept his opinion to himself after the game, but his relative silence spoke volumes given the situation.

Panthers forward A.J. Greer was on TNT after the game, and he also artfully side-stepped the issue.

“Uh, yeah, I got no comment on that. We’ll see next game. We’re just gonna keep playing hard, get on the forecheck and play hard, yeah. It’s not an easy game. There’s gonna be stuff going on in playoffs, and you can’t get too involved in it. You just gotta get past it and on to the next one. There’s not enough time to think.”

That hilariously canned response got a great reaction out of the TNT studio crew that praised Greer for his “restraint” in between chuckles.

“It’s called maturity, boys, eh?” Greer replied.

Game 2 is Thursday in Carolina, and it should be a doozy.