It has been quite the productive week for Boston Bruins forward Brad Marchand.
It has also been a very painful week.
Boston’s All-Star (snub) winger has been one of the hottest players in the NHL over the past couple of weeks, scoring at least one goal in five of his past six games. It is a stretch that has seen him score nine goals in those six games to help the Bruins solidify their position as a potential playoff team in the Eastern Conference. It continued on Saturday afternoon when he scored his 20th goal of the season to help the Bruins beat the Nashville Predators, 4-3, in overtime thanks to a Taylor Hall goal.
The goal scoring is obviously great for Marchand, but what has not been great is the fact he keeps getting his nose destroyed by opposing players.
Earlier this week he had his nose re-arranged by a Nic Dowd high stick against the Washington Capitals (during one of Marchand’s recent two-goal games). On Saturday, he was on the receiving end of a Roman Josi elbow to the face during a puck battle along the boards. The result was this temporary look on the bench.
All in a day’s work, I guess.
As for Marchand’s on-ice production, he remains one of the league’s best offensive players and keeps racking up individual milestones. His goal on Saturday was his 20th of the season and gives him 11 20-goal seasons for his career, including nine in a row.
Go back to the start of the 2015-16 season and only one player in the entire NHL (Alex Ovechkin) has scored more goals than Marchand’s 223 during that stretch while he is also fourth in total points behind only Connor McDavid, Patrick Kane, and Leon Draisaitl. Add in his defensive play, penalty killing, and elite possession driving ability he has been one of the league’s absolute best players for nearly a decade now. Hate him all you want, the list of players better and more productive than him is very, very short.
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Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.