It’s been a good week for Brad Marchand.
Marchand helped Team Canada reach the World Cup of Hockey final versus Team Europe with three goals and five points in four games. Oh, and he also signed an eight-year, $49-million contract extension with the Boston Bruins Monday.
Marchand opened the scoring for Team Canada in Game 1 of the World Cup final, going roof on Jaroslav Halak. Ron MacLean and Don Cherry took a minute to discuss the Bruins super-pest’s big week during Coach’s Corner Tuesday.
“Brad Marchand, $50 million until he’s 37 years of age…” MacLean said.
“Yes, and as I’ve said before, he got the money right on the nose,” Cherry jokingly said in reference to Marchand’s famed beak.
“Anyway they called him in the paper, I thought it was pretty good, the ‘Little Ball of Great'”, Cherry said. “Pat Verbeek was the ‘Little Ball of Hate,’ and this guy’s won a Stanley Cup—he was dynamite in that—he had that one funny year there for a while but he’s back now. I’ll tell ya, the Boston Bruins are pretty happy.”
This is Marchand’s first time representing Canada in a best-on-best tournament. It’s also Steven Stamkos‘s first time sporting the maple leaf in a best-on-best format after a broken leg forced him out of the picture for Team Canada ahead of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi. Blood clot issues limited Stamkos to one post-season game with the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 2016 Stanley Cup playoffs.
Stamkos, who’s played very well in the tournament, finally found his way into the goal column for Team Canada in the first period Tuesday night.
“Tie Domi was by here in the first period and he was saying, for Steven Stamkos to come off that injury is not an easy thing,” MacLean said.
“He comes back and he gets that goal, it’s gotta be a huge weight.”
