Brad Marchand fires back after 'verbal altercation' with coach Montgomery

In case you missed it this past weekend, Boston Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery absolutely unloaded on captain Brad Marchand following an awful turnover against the Seattle Kraken.

Today, both Marchand and Montgomery cleared the air with reporters letting them know that their beef has been squashed.

"That's a thing?" Marchand said to reporters earlier today. "People are very sensitive these days. It's unfortunate how coaches are scrutinized over things like that. There's a lack of unaccountability nowadays because people can't handle the heat."

"You make a mistake like that, you deserve to hear about it," Marchand said. "I'm glad that he said something about it. If he didn't, we would have a much bigger issue. The fact that that's something that we're talking about is disappointing, but that's the way things are today."

He added, "Nobody's absolved from that. ... I should be held accountable in that situation, and I'm glad that he did."

Montgomery more or less agreed with Marchand and said that it's a non-issue in their locker room.

"Him and I are both emotional people," Montgomery explained to reporters. "I'm not ecstatic with myself about it, but I don't think about it afterward, and neither does he. He's a pro. He's a great player who does so many good things for us, and he has high expectations as well."

"For us, that's over and done with."

In other words: We're good.

It isn't every day that you see a coach in the National Hockey League publicly unloading his frustrations with a player on his team, unless of course you're watching a team led by Philadelphia Flyers head coach John Tortorella, and it's even rarer to see a coach do so with the team's leader.

On Saturday night however that is exactly what Bruins fans who were paying close attention to the NESN broadcast got to see when head coach Jim Montgomery absolutely went off on Bruins captain Brad Marchand behind the bench.

After Marchand tried to get too cute with the puck in the offensive load, leading to a turnover and a subsequent breakout for the Seattle Kraken, the Kraken would storm down the ice and quickly put the puck into the back of the Bruins net. It wasn't the most egregious mistake of Marchand's NHL career but it came at a pivotal moment midway through the third period and that was enough to set Montgomery off.

Montgomery could be seen unloading on Marchand, first hitting him with a verbal tirade with anger clearly visible on his face, As Montgomery went off on Marchand he could be seen turning redder and redder, and even went up to Marchand to give him a shove on the shoulder to make sure he had the captain's attention. Even after the shove Montgomery continued to shout at Marchand, clearly furious with the offensive zone turnover his captain had caused.

Luckily for the Bruins they were able to challenge the goal and it would be overturned by the officials on the ice, but it would seem that did little to soothe Montgomery's frustration. In his post game comments, Montgomery mentioned turnovers as a one of the primary reasons for the team's inability to pick up the win.

"We never felt like we were in control of the game, we were turning the puck over too much," said Montgomery.