I haven't kept up as much as I should with the NHL this past week or so and to my surprise I check Facebook last night and hear Marchand is suspended 5 games for an elbow. Then as I go through Facebook the more I see people trying to defend him so I am wondering what you all think. Was the NHL to harsh, easy, or just right with what they did?

The league has announced that #Bruins forward Brad Marchand has been suspended for 5 games.

Since March 2011, Marchand he has now been suspended a total of 6 times resulting in 19 games missed, and has lost a total of $872,535 in fines & forfeited salary.

— CapFriendly (@CapFriendly) January 25, 2018

I think the NHLDoS needs to re-evaluate the fines imposed on players.

There isn't enough of an economic disincentive if the fine isn't progressive relative to their salary. What's $5,000 to a player who makes $5,000,000? There needs to be a much stronger economic disincentive to not commit these dangerous plays. Making the fine directly proportionate to their salary will eliminate these dangerous plays almost immediately. You wouldn't speed if it meant you got fined "x" percentage of your income.

I agree, but fines are tied to salary, According to the CBA, a player can be fined up to 50% of one day's salary, with a maximum of $10,000 on the first offense and $15,000 on subsequent offenses. The NHLPA would fight hard against any fine increases in the next round of CBA negotiations. I also can't really see the owners having any reason to increase the amount, so it probably won't be brought up.

I agree that the PA will push back on this, but I would assume that if they truly care about not having CTE or any sort of brain damage, they need to implement a fine that players will notice in their wallet. I think players will look back in ten, twenty years and think: "should we have increased fines to lower broken brains?"

CTE is going to be a huge topic now and going forward. I think this is the best way to lower the chances of CTE, but I'm coming from an outside perspective. I'm neither a player, nor an owner.

True. If they can't restructure the fine system, they need to be more strict on suspensions, especially since those result in much more lost salary than ordinary fines.

Marchand should stop doing these things.

Then give him a disincentive to stop doing these things

No problem with the suspension. Watching it in real time it looked like it was incidental, but the more you watch it in slow motion it looks like Marchy knew exactly what he was doing. For a guy as talented as he is, these antics need to stop. Not only is he hurting players, but he's hurting his own team by missing time. The problem for Marchy is he's at his best when he plays on that line, but every year he crosses that line and is reckless. When he does return, I wouldn't be shocked to see him go through a bit of a production drought. Last year the same thing happened and while he had 4pts in 6 games, he wasn't taking over games like he was pre-suspension.

I wouldn't have thought by now Marchand would have found that sweet spot of playing on the line....apparently not. Next time he targets a players head like that, give him a 25 games suspension

Marchand's my least favourite player. It looked brutal and was well deserved. It may have been an accident but his other antics may say otherwise. Marchand is the rat who scores on you and then hurts you. Best way I can explain his antics. I would not even like him if he played for my teams. Yes, even if he was a hab, I would still hate him.

Marchand has lost the benefit of the doubt from me. He has a history of disguising cheap shots as accidents.

6 suspensions 19 games and over $800k in fines?
That first number needs to be a lot lower, and if it isn't, those other numbers need to be much higher. I think he's averaging one suspension per season at this point. That's 1 too many each year to be considered accidental.

Apparently, he still gets to go to the all star game?
That's ridiculous.

All star for cheap shots. Yikes.

Also the fake injuries

Maybe its the Boston bias in me, but the people freaking out (not necessarily in here) that Marchand shouldn't be at the all-star game crack me up. I'm not condoning what Marchand did (see my earlier post), but isn't this the same fan base that voted in career goon John Scott as the Pacific Captain just two years ago? Scott mind you throughout his career had been suspended for targeting the head, sucker punches and leaving the bench to fight. <----This guy was a career goon with 11pt and people cheered him before/during the all-star game. To the point I might add, that when the NHL tried to be slick and keep him out (MTL/ARZ trades) the fans lost their mind and the NHL let him be the Pacific NHL All-Star captain while playing for a different team/division in the AHL.