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Bruins' Marchand should have received MVP love in World Cup

September 30, 2016, 3:32 PM ET [24 Comments]
Ty Anderson
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It was an all Boston Bruins scoring affair in Game 2 of the 2016 World Cup of Hockey Final.

In the grand finale of a tournament that struggled to gain the steam the NHL and ESPN had hoped for, it was B’s captain Zdeno Chara that opened up the scoring for Team Europe, but it was Patrice Bergeron that tied the game up late, while Brad Marchand stepped up and scored the Cup-winning goal -- shorthanded (because of course) -- to give Canada a 2-1 win.

The 28-year-old Marchand was all over the scoresheet for Canada throughout the tournament, and when the club needed a big goal, it was often scored by Marchand. But when it came to time to vote for the tournament’s MVP, the award went to Marchand’s linemate, team captain Sidney Crosby. The vote for Crosby, who finished with a tournament-leading 10 points, was (somehow) unanimous, too.

And I’m not here to say that Marchand was robbed… but… Marchand was robbed.

I already understand the backlash that will surely follow: I cover the Bruins for a living, so I think the player from the Bruins should have won. To that I would tell you that I thought Phil Kessel deserved the 2016 Conn Smythe over Crosby, too. But first, let’s acknowledge the fact that Crosby is still the absolute best player in the world. This is not meant to slam him, or discredit what he’s done on the international stage during this -- and even before -- this tournament. Canada’s record with No. 87 in the lineup undoubtedly speaks for itself. But when this tournament ended and the MVP was named, didn’t you just feel like this was a boring vote? And when I say boring, I mean lazy.

Crosby’s the captain, he led the tournament in points (by just two points), and his team won, so according to the EA Sports NHL 16 way of voting, he must be the MVP of the tourney.

Speaking as someone that did not have a vote in this tournament, I don’t think the performance of some players (Marchand) when the stakes were at their highest on the biggest stages were properly weighed into the voting. The whole tournament was a big stage, of course, but for me it comes back down to the performances in the semifinal against Russia and two-game finals against Europe.

The 5-foot-9 Marchand scored a crucial game-tying goal in the waning moments of the second period against Russia, and then set the tone for the third period with Canada’s third goal of the night. He then scored the first goal of Canada’s final series with Europe, and of course, the aforementioned tournament winner with just 44 seconds left in the third period on Thursday night.

Those are gigantic goals from No. 63. And personally speaking, I put more stock in those performances than I do Crosby’s three-point game against the Czech Republic in round robin play.

The common counterpoint to that argument has been that Crosby was often on the ice to make those goals happen. Note: Crosby was not on the ice for the tournament-winning goal, but did chime in with one goal and six points in the final three games of the tournament. But even with that point, when we often give credit, rarely do we find ways to give more credit to the contributing factors to a goal than we do the goal-scorer itself. You can’t simply point to Marchand’s linemate as a way of discrediting his accomplishments when they are scored with such regularity. Crosby helped, sure, but this was not Marchand sitting at the front of the net and plugging rebounds into the cage. He was a major factor.

And let’s say the names next to the stat lines were switched and it was Crosby that scored a tourney-leading five goals, including the winner, while it was Marchand that led scoring with 10 points. Do we honestly think that it would’ve been Marchand that won the MVP honors and not Crosby? Of course not.

It’s admittedly tough to feign outrage about a tournament that was almost impossible to truly care about given the presentation and timing of it all, but for Marchand to not even received a single vote given his contributions to Canada on this run, is just flat-out lazy voting from those involved.

The good news, at least for the Bruins anyways, is that they get Bergeron, Chara, and the should-have-been-MVP, Marchand, along with Claude Julien, back in their camp next week.

Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter since 2013, and can also be read in the New England Hockey Journal magazine. Contact him on Twitter or send him an email at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.
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