Leading up to Bruins media day on Wednesday, we hadn’t heard anything suggesting Brad Marchand regretted the licks heard around the hockey world. His tune has suddenly changed.
During the team’s final media availability of the season, the 29-year-old admitted that what he did was unacceptable.
“After having a couple days, kind of looking back on the year and seeing what’s happened the last few days with all the media and everything, I think the biggest thing for me now is to really take a pretty hard looking in the mirror and realize the actions, some of the things that I’m doing have much bigger consequences,” Marchand said. “I’ve always been a pretty easy-going guy and there’s not a whole lot that phases me at all. I think it’s kind of gotten to the point where the last thing I ever want to do is bring the embarrassment to my teammates and the organization that it did.
“I have to be a lot better. I know I’ve said that in the past but that’s got to be the thing that I really work on the most. I think I’ve gotten my game to a pretty decent spot but I’ve got some character things and things that I’ve done that clearly need some fixing. That’s going to be the biggest thing that I take away from what’s happened the last few days.
“At the time, I didn’t think it there was a big deal at all. I couldn’t believe where it was going that it was even worth talking about it.”
“I’ve got to cut that [expletive] out,” Marchand added, per the Athletic’s Fluto Shinzawa.
Either Marchand figured that out in a hurry, or someone in the Bruins organization got to him before he addressed the media. Without knowing for sure, it seems like someone spoke to him about kissing/licking opponents because his previous quotes and tweets suggested he had no regrets.
[NBC’s Stanley Cup Playoff Hub]
Either way, this is probably the best possible look for him heading into the offseason.
On another note, the Bruins forward announced that he played through a groin injury in the second round.
He wasn’t the only one on his team that had to battle through injury. Noel Acciari’s groin injury will require offseason surgery, Riley Nash is hoping his injured hip doesn’t need to be operated on, Jake DeBrusk was dealing with a shoulder injury, Zdeno Chara played through an upper-body injury and Torey Krug suffered a fractured ankle in Game 4 against Tampa. He won’t require surgery, but he’ll have to be in a boot for two months.
Patrice Bergeron missed Game 4 against Toronto because of concussion-like symptoms. He had also been dealing with a groin injury that likely won’t require an operation.
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Joey Alfieri is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @joeyalfieri.