MARCHAND’S MAGIC ACT MESMERIZES BLUE JACKETS

Bruins agitator getting to Columbus by taking shots both on and off the ice

Of all the things Brad Marchand has been called by opponents in his 10 years as a Bruin, “professional magician” has to be one of the most flattering.

That backhanded compliment from Cam Atkinson comes with a charge, however. He says Marchand owes him $300. “Cash,” the Columbus Blue Jackets high-scoring winger specified on Friday. “Straight cash.”

We take you back to overtime in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinal at TD Garden on Thursday night. About two minutes before Charlie Coyle’s second goal of the night gave the B’s a 1-0 series lead, Marchand was lined up beside Atkinson — behind the linesman’s back — for a neutral zone faceoff. Just as Patrice Bergeron was getting kicked out of the circle, Marchand stomped on and snapped Atkinson’s stick, where the shaft meets the blade. As Atkinson skated to the bench to replace it, he had words with Marchand. When he came back, he bumped him, to which Marchand replied by slashing Atkinson just under the throat. No penalties were called. “I think he was trying to dull up my blade there, send me to the room to get it sharpened,” Marchand said with tongue in cheek the next morning. “That’s kind of rude of him to do.” A couple of hours later, Atkinson was told of Marchand’s comments.

“I know him … it is what it is,” said Atkinson, explaining that he was mostly mad because, had Bergeron not been tossed, he might have been penalized for playing with a broken stick. “Kudos to him for getting away with it. I don’t know what you’d call, if that’s even a penalty, or a delay of game ... I’ve never seen that before.

“He’s a professional at doing those sorts of things.” Jokingly asked if it was his favourite stick, Atkinson replied no, but that he did “like it a lot,” and added: “He owes me $300, so you can tell him that.”

You, or the team?

“Me. it’s my property,” he said. “It says Atkinson on it.”

As angry as he was at the time, Atkinson spoke with admiration about Marchand a day later. “I think he kind of feeds off of that. He’s been doing those sorts of things for a long time,” said Atkinson. “That’s what makes him successful. I mean, would you love to have a guy like that on your team? Absolutely. He’s a helluva player.”

And sneaky.

“No one saw it,” said Atkinson. “Kudos to him. He’s a professional magician.”

The Bruins have pulled off a neat trick themselves, winning the series clincher against the Toronto Maple Leafs and the opener against the Jackets without a point from Marchand. He racked up 100 of them during the season — 19 more than anybody else on the team — and he could have had a hat trick on Thursday as three redirected attempts slid just wide of an open side. “You’re not going to score every shot,” Marchand said when asked if he felt snakebit. “Didn’t need me to score last night. We got the win. That’s all that matters.” The Bruins will need Marchand to get going again if they’re to have a shot at winning the seventh Cup in franchise history. He’s had a good post-season thus far, with four goals and nine points in eight games, but he’s also been shut out in four games, so they’ve come in bunches. Meanwhile, as the bottom-six forwards have led the way offensively of late, Marchand is getting his shots in, on and off the ice. Asked if he personally knows David Savard, the heavily bearded Columbus defenceman who gave him a rough ride into the boards Thursday and also played for the QMJHL’s Moncton Wildcats for three years after Marchand was there for two, he replied: “No, but what a handsome fellow he is.” Marchand also took a thinly veiled poke at former teammate Riley Nash, whose third-period hit on David Krejci has left the Bruins centre questionable for Saturday’s Game 2.

“I think that’s what you expect from that group, they play extremely hard,” Marchand said when asked about the physicality of the Blue Jackets. “If you watched the Tampa series at all, that’s how they won. They just kind of ran them out of the rink. Their whole group.

“Even when you’ve got guys like Nasher who start finishing hits ... I don’t think he had a hit in two years with us ... Obviously, everybody’s bought in to their system.”

Later, Nash was asked for his reaction, because, well, stuff Marchand was saying had become the central figure of the first off day of the series. “The game inside the game,” said Nash. “Comments are going to be made on the ice, off the ice, whatever. It is what it is. I’m just trying to make a good hockey play out there. He can say whatever.”

Oh, he will. You can be sure Marchand is going to make a lot more noise this series.