"Best money I ever spent."
Those were Brandon Prust's words upon being slapped with a $5000 fine from the NHL's Department of Player Safety Sunday for his spear to the "fun spot" of Brad Marchand the night prior. Without a doubt, this punishment is too lenient, and Boston fans have a right to be upset. Those poor, poor fans.
Let us review the incident in question. DO NOT LAUGH. THIS IS SERIOUS.
Okay, maybe it's a little hilarious.
I like how even the homerrific Boston announcers sort of understand the impulse. Jack Edwards doesn't even need to see the replay to know what probably happened. He's like, Yeah, late game, little out of hand, someone prolly seized the opportunity to spear Brad Marchand in the bits. Of course, then he sees the replay and launches into full outrage.
"I hope Brandon Prust has a nice suspension," Edwards barks.
But alas, there was no suspension, as the Department of Player Safety took into account that it was Brad Marchand, the most spearable player in the Eastern Conference, and showed some mercy. "That is delicious video for the boys in New York," Edwards says, unaware of quite how right he probably is. At some point, they took a break from their snickering and issued Prust a lame fine.
And when you make what he makes, that's the epitome of a cheap shot. Hell, he did a cost benefit analysis beforehand. And he bragged about it afterward.
"I kinda thought that's what would happen, so it wasn't that hard," Prust said, all but stating that he took into account the cost of the spear before carrying it out and decided, yeah, I'm willing to spend five thousand dollars on this.
Wouldn't you? Again, we're talking about this guy:
This guy:
This guy:
This guy:
Yeah, I might organize a Kickstarter, or something.
I mean, you might not if you're a Boston fan. Brad Marchand is their jerk in the same way that Ryan Kesler was our jerk. Or Alex Burrows remains our jerk. And if someone speared Burrows in the fun zone, I'd probably have skipped the chuckling and gone right to the shouting about how ridiculous it is that this totally deliberate, dirty play only received a paltry and easily payable fine.
But as a Canucks fan, I'm strangely okay with Prust taking advantage of a system whose deterrent hardly deters at all (and getting his revenge in a way that doesn't involve punches to the brain or broken necks). Granted, now that the Canucks have already benefited from this dumb system, I do hope the league addresses the issue going forward.
Prust should too. Marchand has more money than he does. Although he's morally above this sort of thing, apparently:
Brad Marchand said he didn't care what Brandon Prust had to say, but did mention those kind of moments "reveal character" in people
— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) December 7, 2015
