Slew-foot or hockey play? Why Brad Marchand will avoid discipline for trip on Timothy Liljegren
It’s mid-lesson. Long division. The fifth-grade teacher hears chatter at the back of the class, wheels around and glowers at the troublemaker kid.
“You. DETENTION.”
Only it wasn’t the bad-seed kid talking this time. The teacher was simply playing the odds, assuming the disturbance came from its usual source.
That’s a quintessential elementary school memory, right? At least, it was for me. Maybe 75 percent of the time, the troublemaker kid was doing something wrong, but he got blamed for the other 25 percent, too, even when he wasn’t doing anything wrong.
Which brings us to the Nose Face Killah himself, newly minted captain of the Boston Bruins, Mr. Brad Marchand.
Marchand needs no introduction when it comes to his rap sheet. It reads like John Cusack describing the passengers on the Con Air flight. Marchand is the most suspended player in NHL history, having forked over more than $1.4 million in salary over the course of his career. He has been suspended eight different times, for everything from low-bridge hits to illegal checks to the head to slew-footing, and fined nine other times. He’s dirty. Full stop.
So when Hockey Twitter started Zapruder filming his collision with Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Timothy Liljegren Thursday night, which will shelf him “significant time” according to coach Sheldon Keefe, the natural move was to go full Fifth Grade Teacher and assume Marchand acted maliciously. “Slew-foot! Dirty! Dangerous trip!”
The truth: that’s a reaction to Marchand’s unrivalled career disciplinary baggage and not to the play itself, which was unfortunate but not dirty and will not result in any supplemental discipline from the NHL Department of Player Safety.
First, I’ll paint a picture of what the play wasn’t.
The NHL rulebook defines slew-footing as:
“The act of a player using his leg or foot to knock or kick an opponent’s feet from under him, or pushes an opponent’s upper body backward with an arm or elbow, and at the same time with a forward motion of his leg, knocks or kicks the opponent’s feet from under him, causing him to fall violently to the ice.”
Marchand is no stranger to the slew-foot, having twice been suspended for one and also fined for a third incident.
Here’s his most recent slew-foot, delivered on Oliver Ekman-Larsson in 2021, earning Marchand a three-game suspension:
Watch how Marchand (a) initiates the contact and (b) uses his right leg to sweep the back of OEL’s legs, causing him to crash backward to the ice violently. Classic slew-foot.
Now, have a look at the Liljegren play from Thursday:
Timothy Liljegren has been helped down the tunnel and has left the game after this play against Boston. pic.twitter.com/KOJ6YZ3XMq
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) November 3, 2023
Liljegren engages Marchand in the puck battle, not vice versa. Liljegren initiates the physical contact. Liljegren slides his own right leg in front of Marchand’s legs as Marchand attempts to tie up Liljegren’s stick. As they both apply the brakes with the boards approaching and bump hip to hip, Marchand’s stick appears to pull the can opener between Liljegren’s legs and Marchand’s leg sweeps Liljegren’s legs, causing him to fall and crash into the boards. But it’s the momentum from the puck battle, and the contact Liljegren initiated, that actually causes the trip here.
A concept the DOPS uses when trying to determine whether certain dangerous plays warrant supplemental discipline is “losing the physical battle,” which often applies on scary collisions that result in one player crashing into the boards. The type of board play that earns a suspension occurs when one player sees another player’s numbers, initiates the contact and drives that player into the boards from behind. “Losing the physical battle” occurs when it’s the player who gets hurt who actually seeks out the contact, gets overpowered while jockeying for position and is thrown into the boards because of his own momentum.
What we saw Thursday was the latter example. Liljegren’s injury was extremely unfortunate but came as the result of losing a physical battle that he initiated.
Marchand has hardly earned the benefit of the doubt during his career, so it’s understandable why many hockey fans assume he tried to hurt Liljegren. But this one was just was an unlucky hockey play in the end.
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