The Boston Bruins have lost six consecutive games and sometimes during slumps, reports emerge about locker room turmoil.
He said the ‘locker room was a disaster’ and that David Pastrnak was at the center of it and has ‘told the team he doesn’t want to be on a line with Brad Marchand.’
Marchand was having none of that.
‘It’s unfortunate,’ the Bruins captain told reporters. ‘I know that reporters have a job to do and that job is to report on the team and usually you try to be fact-based, but when it’s just blatant lies told in the media, that’s when there’s a problem.’
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He accused Keefe of making stuff up and called the report ‘ridiculous’ and ’embarrassing.’
‘Pasta and I are best friends. We’ve have had an incredibly close relationship for a long time,’ Marchand said. ‘The only reason we don’t play together is so we can spread depth through the lineup.
‘There’s zero truth to him being a problem in the room. He’s one of the most loved guys in the room. There’s zero issues in the room at all, and the fact that they said he’s at the center of anything is a completely fabricated lie.’
The Bruins were expected to be among the top teams in the Atlantic Division but fired coach Jim Montgomery after a slow start. There was a bump under interim coach Joe Sacco, but the current slide has the team up in the wild-card race by only one point at the halfway point of the season.
Marchand admitted that the season hasn’t gone the way the team has wanted, ‘but I’m not going to let some random guy come in the media and just spit absolute nonsense.’
Pastrnak also called the report ‘100% false.’
‘We love each other,’ he told reporters. ‘I have a huge amount of respect for him.’
Marchand and Pastrnak said they laughed about the WEEI report.
‘We have a phenomenal relationship,’ Marchand said. ‘Our wives, our kids have great relationships, so we have no issues laughing about that and then putting this to bed.’