Bruins’ Brad Marchand now agitating on NHL scoresheets, too

Early this season, Boston Bruins winger Brad Marchand partially got away with a slew-foot on Detroit defenceman Niklas Kronwall so he hasn’t completely erased that Little Ball of Hate moniker.

He got a $10,000 fine but not a fifth suspension for nefarious acts over the years.

The instances where opposing players are yelling at him, where the National Hockey League’s department of player safety is looking at his every move like they’re private eyes, aren’t the same.

“Too tired to do those things now,” laughed Marchand, who went into his team’s game Thursday against the Edmonton Oilers tied in the NHL scoring race with Connor McDavid and Patrick Kane, and leading in goals with 36.

He’s agitating on the scoresheet, now.

“Nowadays, the refs and linesmen really clamp down on stuff you say one thing to a guy and they’re warning you with a misconduct,” he said. “Tough to do that, especially with my reputation. I’m being watched pretty closely. Better to get away with it.”

He’s frustrating teams in another way.

“His game has changed to using his skill and playing the game in its purest form,” said Bruins forward David Backes, who played against him when he was the St. Louis Blues captain and they would have some run-ins.

“He’s still got his moments when he is a pest and can get players distracted, but he’s found a great balance point. He knows if he just plays hockey, he’s a handful.”

Now, he’s Brad Marchand The Goal Scorer, The Hart Trophy Candidate.

Marchand, the 71st player taken in the 2006 draft, went into Thursday’s game with the Oilers with 11 goals over his previous 10 games and 19 over the past 20.

He had one more goal than Sidney Crosby, his linemate at last fall’s World Cup of Hockey.

How did this happen? Part of it is his shooting percentage, an ungodly 17.6 per cent this season. Marchand’s career NHL average is 15.4 per cent. That said, he was scoring at a 17.5 per cent clip when he scored 37 goals, so maybe he’s just more accurate than most players.

His goals’ high as a junior in the wide-open Q was 33 goals in Val d’Or. He’s one of the few players who’ve been able to score more often in the NHL — Brendan Shanahan, Jamie Benn — than in junior, where they were stars.

“I was a bit of everything in junior, I don’t think I’d figured anything out,” he said.

“That’s Marshie, he wants to prove people wrong. He’s only going to grow and get better,” said Bruins’ coach Bruce Cassidy. “Now, he’s got good teammates around him. (Patrice) Bergeron has been a good influence. They’re joined at the hip on how to prepare on and off the ice. They have great chemistry, and we’ve used (David) Pastrnak, who’s a dynamic player (he’s scored 30 goals).”

“Brad has determination that’s off the charts and his off-ice training and conditioning allows him to put in the third and fourth effort and we can double-shift him and his game doesn’t drop off,” said Cassidy.

And suddenly he’s in the NHL most-valuable player conversation with McDavid and Crosby, Brent Burns in San Jose, Erik Karlsson in Ottawa.

Again, what name doesn’t figure on that list?

“That’s (the Hart Trophy) the farthest thing from my mind,” Marchand said.