Brad Marchand on the Mitchell Miller controversy.

After a red hot start to the season and with the best record in the Eastern Conference, the Boston Bruins decided that they needed a little adversity this week. The Bruins found that adversity when they announced that they had signed highly controversial defenseman Mitchell Miller, this after most other teams around the league had seemingly deemed him untouchable.

In spite of the fact that there appear to be no signs that Mitchell is expected to play at the National Hockey League level any time in the near future, the signing has dominated headlines around hockey since it was announced and has even prompted a response from NHL commissioner Gary Bettman himself.

You can expect that just about every member of the Bruins will also be asked about the controversial move, and many including Bruins captain Patrice Bergeron and veteran forward Nick Foligno have already shared their thoughts on the issue.

The latest to do so is notorious Bruins agitator Brad Marchand, who on Saturday faced the questions about Miller's addition head on.

"With Mitchell.... that's a situation where obviously we understand the dynamics around it," said Marchand. "We have a culture in this organization, in this room, we obviously don't condone what happened and that will never be a part of our team and our organization."

That being said, Marchand did not close the door to Mitchell one day joining the Bruins suggesting instead that it would take a great deal of work on the young man's part to get there.

"If he's with our group it will be because he has shown that he has learned and matured and that he's come a long way," said Marchand. "It's going to be a very long process for him and that's on him."

Perhaps the most interesting takeaway from Marchand's answers on this issue however were the ones in regards to the burden placed on the shoulder of the Bruins players as a result of this signing, specifically the Bruins leadership group. In a great display of maturity and wisdom, Marchand spoke of how he may have been a lot to handle himself earlier on in his career as an NHL player.

"You know we're a group," said Marchand. "Everything that happens at any point of the year we all go through it together, that's always been how this works. The organization has had to go through things for me that I'm sure they haven't wanted to deal with. It's not all good, it's not all bad, you go with the ebbs and flows and you deal with it as a group and this is another situation."