Days after being fined $10,000, the maximum allowed under the CBA, for a “dangerous trip” Brad Marchand was at it again Tuesday night with another similar incident on Tampa Bay’s Anton Stralman.
This time, he’s not expected to face supplementary discipline.
Calling this a “trip” is being lenient. By the book, Marchand’s transgression is a slew foot.
According to Rule 52: “Slew footing is the act of a player using his leg or foot to knock or kick an opponent’s feet from under him, or pushes an opponent’s upper body backward with an arm or elbow, and at the same time with a forward motion of his leg, knocks or kicks the opponent’s feet from under him, causing him to fall violently to the ice.”
Marchand was not penalized for either the slew foot on Kronwall, or the one on Stralman.
Said Stralman of the play: “I can’t say. There’s contact and I fall. I can’t say if he did anything or not, but I’m not the puck holder. I’m out in the neutral zone, and I get hit from behind. That’s all I got to say.”
After Marchand was fined last week, he spoke about needing to play smarter and acknowledged that he was lucky to just get away with a fine.
“I feel very fortunate,” Marchand said last Thursday. “I think they might have given me a bit of a break. I’m just happy to play the game tonight and move on.
“Maybe some smarter decisions. The last thing I want to be doing is continually going back in front of those guys [the NHL Department of Player Safety]. I’m sure they’re getting sick of seeing me. That’s a little bit of stupidity there. A little unnecessary. I can play the game without doing that stuff.”
Prior to the $10,000 fine, Marchand had faced discipline for slew footing twice before: He was fined $2,500 during the 2011-12 season for a slew foot on Matt Niskanen and suspended two games in 2014-15 for doing the same to Derick Brassard.
