Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe claims Brad Marchand gets special treatment from refs

Boston Bruins captain Brad Marchand is apparently cooking dinner in the collective head of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Brad Marchand scored two goals and added an assist to help lead his team to a 4-2 win in Game 3 and give the Bruins a 2-1 series lead over the Maple Leafs, but that didn’t seem to be Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe’s main concern in his post-game press conference. When asked about the 35-year-old Boston Bruins captain coming up big again in a playoff game, Keefe began to praise Marchand but then indicated, despite his team getting five powerplays to the Bruins’ three, that Marchand gets preferential treatment from the officials.

“You gotta play through it. You gotta recognize he’s a world-class player both in ability and how he plays,” Keefe first replied. “His gamesmanship and everything is world-class.”

That’s when it got weird, and Keefe went on one heck of a baseless rant.

“He’s been in the league long enough, as you can see, and he gets calls,” Keefe claimed. “It’s unbelievable actually how it goes. But we gotta play through that; we gotta play through that stuff. I don’t think there’s another player in this series who gets away with taking away other players’ legs the way that he does. There’s not one other player who gets away with that in this series, but he does. It’s an art, and he’s elite at it.