Brad Marchand surprisingly loses his top spot

The Athletic put together another poll for 2024 and investigated on which player currently in the National Hockey League other players would love to punch in the face.

When NHLers were asked the question, they all expected Boston Bruins’ Brad Marchand to be the winner. However, the Bruins’ captain has officially lost the top spot as Florida Panthers’ Nick Cousins was voted as the player in the league whose face you most want to punch per his peers.

“I’m sure everybody has said Marchand, right?” one player said. Actually, no! The Panthers’ Cousins seems to have stolen the “most-hated opponent” crown from the Bruins’ captain.

Here are some of the comments that were made on Cousins when he came up as the answer:

“Played against him a long time,” one player said of Cousins. “Always hated the guy.”

“He’s gonna get a lot of answers on this one,” another rightly predicted.

“I’m buddies with him and I’d still say him,” said a third.

Sure, players aren’t saying that they wouldn’t punch Marchand, but he got 14.97% of the voting while Cousins landed 28.57%.

“I love the guy, but it’s probably Marchand for sure,” one player said.

“I mean, Marchand’s always a good (player) you want to punch,” another said.

Cousins has gotten quite the reputation, especially this season when even former NHL defenseman and now Sportsnet analyst Kevin Bieksa called him a rat. Earlier this season, the retired blue liner called out Cousins, comparing his reckless play to former teammate Raffi Torres. Cousins was not suspended for recent hits, notably on Arizona defenseman Juuso Valimaki up high in a game in which only Coyotes’ Jason Zucker was suspended for his actions towards Cousins. During the postseason of 2013, Torres fired an illegal check to the head of Anaheim Ducks forward Jakob Silfverberg. The hit resulted in a 41-game suspension for Torres, who never played an NHL game after that incident.

There is no doubt that Cousins’ demeanour this season has prompted other NHL players to want to punch him in the face, even picking him over the usually most-hated Marchand in Boston…

Cousins loves it, by the way, which will probably make more NHLers want to punch him in the face!

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