The Colorado Avalanche is still without a win, four games into the 2024-25 season. They suffered another loss on Wednesday against the Boston Bruins, although the Bruins had to play without their captain, Brad Marchand, for the start of the third period.
In the second period, Brad Marchand was involved in a controversial incident with Avalanche’s Mikko Rantanen.
Marchand collided with Rantanen and fell awkwardly, and the superstar forward Rantanen was absolutely furious at Marchand, and even more so when he was called for interference.
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Rantanen immediately raised his hands above his head in disbelief when the arm from the referee came out, and looking at the replays, it sure looked like Brad Marchand exaggerated when he fell.
Brad Marchand had one more shift after the collision but exited the game with 4:26 remaining of the second period. He returned six minutes into the third period, and post-game, Jim Montgomery issued an update on the captain’s status, calming fans down.
”Oh, Brad’s fine, yeah,” Montgomery said. ”Just a spasm.”
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But on social media, Marchand was slammed for ’selling’ the interference penalty, with almost everyone saying the same thing about it.
”Get him a job at Casa Bonita cause that was a beautiful dive,” one user said.
”Gold medal on that one. Obviously a dive in the context of watching a replay, but just subtle enough that a ref watching the play and only seeing it in his peripheral could miss it being a dive,” another said.
”How do the refs still fall for it?” a third added.