Brad Marchand was sent to the showers early in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals between the Florida Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes.
The Panthers’ pest was assessed four minutes in roughing minors and a 10-minute misconduct after he went after Carolina defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere, who had appeared to intentionally shoot the puck right at Marchand.
Gostisbehere’s shot was seemingly in response to Marchand’s actions earlier in his shift, when he clipped Gostisbehere after the defenseman had moved the puck.
Gostisbehere was only assessed two minutes for roughing, so the Hurricanes got a power play. Since the incident occurred at 8:15 of the third period, and with 14 minutes of penalties on the board, Marchand was escorted to the locker room.
Though Marchand didn’t record any points in Game 1, he got the last laugh; his Panthers won 5-2.
The Panthers had little to say about the incident after the game, publicly anyways. Forward A.J. Greer said he had ‘no comment’ when he was asked about the incident by TNT.
‘We’ll see next game, we’re just going to keep playing hard. You know, going to get on the forecheck … and play hard. It’s not an easy game, there’s going to be stuff going on in the playoffs. You can’t get too involved in it, you just got to get past it and on to the next one,’ Greer said.
Panthers coach Paul Maurice was even more brief in his comments. Asked for his opinion on the sequence, Maurice said: ‘I’ve got one. I’ll be keeping that to myself.’
All the news, on and off the ice: Sign up for USA TODAY’s Sports newsletter.
The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.
