Shutterstock / Jai Agnish
The Boston Bruins were bounced from the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs yesterday by the Tampa Bay Lightning. While the Bruins absolutely dominated the Lightning in the NHL’s regular season it only took Tampa Bay 5 games to send Boston home to lick their wounds.
One of the biggest storylines of Boston’s run in the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs involved left winger Brad Marchand licking players on the opposing team. Yes, a grown ass man was licking his opponents to try and get under their skin. It got so bad that the NHL had to warn Brad Marchand TWICE to stop licking players. The first time Marchand was warned to stop licking players he denied (on Twitter) that the NHL had told him to grow the fuck up and stop licking men on the other team:
https://twitter.com/Bmarch63/status/989863432403861505
After he was warned the first time, Brad Marchand responded by licking Tampa Bay’s Ryan Callahan:
— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) May 5, 2018
The second time they warned they also threated potential repercussions if he did it again. But that was last weekend and the Bruins only lasted one more game in the playoffs which wasn’t nearly enough time for Marchand to get himself suspended for licking again. You can find a detailed explainer of the Brad Marchand Licking Players Saga in this article from @davelozo.
The offseason has officially begun for Brad Marchand and he took to Twitter just a few hours ago to catch up on some trolling. It started with the Montreal Canadiens throwing shade at him on Twitter. Marchand didn’t hold back:
As a Tampa Bay Lightning fan, I cannot fucking stand Brad Marchand. But, I can be objective and say that I’d absolutely love him if he was on my team. He’s one of those players you cannot stand to play against but if he’s on your side then you love him. He’s not the biggest player by any stretch of the imagination so he has to make up for that in other ways, and his way is to get under the skin of opposing team’s players and get them playing on tilt. You can hate the player like I do, but you have to admit his tactics work.