Brad Marchand Credits Patrice Bergeron For Reeling In Emotions Before OT Winner
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- Brad Marchand didn't play his best in Game 1 vs. the Capitals. And through two periods of Game 2, he hadn't exactly improved. He had generated some more opportunities, yes. But he also took himself off the ice twice by getting penalized for post-whistle activities.
Marchand's a veteran of 12 NHL seasons, with three long playoff runs and a Stanley Cup under his belt. He knows how to handle various situations. Still, on a night with so much at stake, and with emotions running so hot, he said he benefited from having the steady presence of Patrice Bergeron alongside him on Monday night.
"Obviously Bergie, in situations like that will grab me and kind of reel me back in, like he did," Marchand said of his captain and longtime linemate. "That's just part of it. I mean we're obviously on the biggest stage right now and gotta stay out of the box in these games. So I've gotta do a little bit better job there than I did tonight."
Whatever was said by Bergeron -- who also scored the Bruins' second goal of the night -- it seems to have done the trick. Marchand stayed out of the penalty box in the third period, and after Taylor Hall jammed home the game-tying goal out of a pile of bodies in Washington's crease, Marchand delivered the game-winning goal just 39 seconds into overtime with a picture-perfect one-time blast.
Turning a 3-2 third-period deficit into a 4-3 overtime win dramatically reshaped the scope of this series, as it heads back to Boston for Game 3 on Wednesday. While Marchand's skill delivered the final note of this particular game, he made sure to share the credit with the ever-reliable Bergeron and the rest of his teammates.
"I think that's something that our group is so good about. We don't panic throughout games," Marchand said. "We have so much character in our room, and you can sense it all the way through the bench and during the timeouts and in the room. There's a sense of calm when things aren't going our way. That's why we have [Tuukka Rask] back there to kind of bail us out in situations like that, and give us a minute to find our game. That's what happened."
