There were plenty of individual cases of embarrassment for the Pittsburgh Penguins on Monday night, as they lost to the Bruins 6-1 to dig themselves into an early 2-0 hole in the Eastern Conference Finals.
For starters, you had Sidney Crosby turning the puck over to spot the Bruins a lead 28 seconds into the game. Then, we saw Tomas Vokoun benched after allowing three first-period goals. Marc Andre-Fleury replaced him, only to allow three goals of his own. There was also Kris Letang, a Norris Trophy finalist, turning the puck over with a pass from behind his own net to give Boston a 2-0 lead.
The list goes on and on, but no player should feel as horrible on Tuesday morning as Matt Cooke. We all saw Brad Marchand’s second goal of the game with 8.1 seconds left in the second period to completely deflate the Penguins 25 seconds after they scored their first goal of the game. What many did not see, however, was Marchand and Cooke talking trash to one another just before it happened.
If you watch the bottom of the screen in the video above, you see Marchand face-to-face with Cooke just before he went streaking down the ice and sniped the top right corner against Fleury. After taking Cooke’s manhood, Marchand continued to bark at him as if letting up one of the most crucial goals of the game wasn’t enough. This video shows a better view of the exchange before the goal:
Cooke is one of the most hated players in the NHL, and this is yet another reason why. He seems to care more about taking people’s heads off and being a goon than focusing on winning the game. Marchand knows that and picked a perfect time to get into his head. Again, this is why people cheered when Cooke got knocked out on one punch a few years back.
