Following Thursday’s rousing 6-5 Bruins victory over the Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena, the NHL Department of Player Safety announced that Boston forward Brad Marchand had been fined $5,000, the maximum allowable under the collective bargaining agreement. The cause was a “dangerous trip.”
The Kraken player on the receiving end, Oliver Bjorkstrand, agreed Saturday that the fine was warranted. With their arms wrapped around one another, Marchand appeared to stick his leg out to catch the back of Bjorkstrand’s legs and put him off balance.
“You get irritated, mad, whatever. It’s a dirty play,” Bjorkstrand said.
“Punch me in the head instead, I guess. Nobody’s ready (for you) to come behind, so it’s kind of hard to defend. If it was allowed, obviously, you’d be ready for it.”
The teams were tied at 4 and the Kraken were going for a series sweep of the league-best Bruins. Marchand and Bjorkstrand were behind the play with 5:38 left in Thursday’s third period. After a whistle they squared off, making hard enough contact that Bjorkstrand’s stick went flying. He then fell to the ice.
“I can’t really do much,” Bjorkstrand said. “That’s dangerous. You could hit your head hard. That’s obviously why it’s not allowed. Not an ideal play.”
Every skater on the ice got involved in the resulting scrum, during which time Bjorkstrand grabbed Marchand’s leg. Each player was assessed a minor for cross-checking.
Slew-footing is defined in the league rulebook as “the act of a player using his leg or foot to knock or kick an opponent’s feet from under him,” or when he pushes “an opponent’s upper body backward with an arm or elbow, and at the same time with a forward motion of his leg, knocks or kicks the opponent’s feet from under him, causing him to fall violently to the ice.” It’s taken seriously, as a player guilty of slew-footing is supposed to be assessed a match penalty.
Marchand appeared to make contact with Bjorkstrand’s leg but didn’t distinctly sweep his feet out from under him, which might have kept him just this side of another suspension. According to Sportrac, Marchand has been suspended eight times for a total of 28 games and forfeited $1,424,567 in salary. Three separate incidents — one three-game suspension and two fines — were for slew-footing.
He offers elite scoring. In the past seven seasons, Marchand has landed in the NHL’s top 10 in points four times. He has the fifth-highest point-per-game total (1.19) in the league during that span.
He has 18 goals and 51 points through 49 games this season, good for 57th in the NHL. Bjorkstrand (11 goals, 19 assists, team-high 140 shots) noted that silver lining.
“He’s got more points than me, so it’s probably better he’s out (of action) than me,” he said.
“That’s his game. He gets into people’s faces. Why he chose me, I don’t know. I don’t think he really thinks that much about it, he just kind of reacts.”
There were positive takeaways from an entertaining rematch between the teams. The Kraken became the first opponent this season to hand the Bruins a regulation loss at home in January. They came close to becoming just the third team so far to take points from multiple meetings with Boston.
“I thought we played a good game,” Bjorkstrand said. “Obviously it would be nice if we could find a way to get the two points — or at least one. We had the lead multiple times and late in the game.
“We can say a lot of good things and a few things we could learn from. We definitely felt like we could have gotten the win, but in the end, we weren’t good enough in certain situations.”
Seattle coach Dave Hakstol echoed those statements Saturday after practice at Kraken Community Iceplex.
“I loved our compete. Our response was great. Our initiation was great,” Hakstol said. “The disappointment comes also at a pretty great level.
“There’s takeaways there to close that game out. Just make sure we’re communicating on those areas, shoring up those areas and closing out valuable points.”
Note
Kraken forward Andre Burakovsky, who has missed eight games with a lower-body injury, was behind the bench talking to his teammates during practice but didn’t take the ice. Burakovsky led Seattle in scoring for much of the season. “I have no update. He’s week-to-week,” Hakstol said.