“It’s almost completely disappeared,” said the Florida Panthers coach, Paul Maurice, last April when asked about his thoughts on the art of trash-talking. His major complaint with the chirps that he gets to hear? “They’re not as funny as they used to be. They used to be really, really funny.” That being said, he is glad that there is still one guy on his team whose contribution to the discipline(?) has been immense. “Now, it’s nice having Brad Marchand back in our group, because he is funny,” noted Maurice. Some of the Panthers are also in agreement.

Anton Lundell, for one, thinks there’s not a single boring moment when Marchand is around: “…you never know what he’s gonna say next.” Matthew Tkachuk, too, who’s quite the agitator himself, has given #63 his stamp of approval. “Probably just got the experience against some of these guys, and knows when to get them off their game. Like, he’s smart with that stuff. He’s got some pretty good chirps.” Well, thankfully, he is also willing to share some tips on how to get under an opponent’s skin.

When he was asked about how to get under an opponent’s skin during on-ice plays, he kept it simple: “I just yell as many different things as I can at somebody, and then hopefully one of them makes them mad,” he explained with a grin. “You know, someone bites, and then they yell back. Once they do that, I know I’ve got them. Then I keep going. And then they get annoyed. Then my coach gets annoyed. Then the refs get annoyed. And I get a penalty.” If you want more, you just have to call “1-800-BRAD-SCRAPS” and pay “$19.99″—not a steep price at all considering the resume that he comes with.

A mainstay on the NHLPA’s annual survey, Marchand took the top spot in both “Game’s Best Trash Talker” and “Game’s Worst Trash Talker” in back-to-back polls between 2018 and 2020. Yeah, you read that right. Then in 2024, for the third straight year, he won the poll for the player whom other NHL players least enjoy facing but would love to have on the team. He took home 29.2 percent of the vote, while Connor McDavid, who stood second, got 17.48 percent of the votes. But that being said, it’s not like his reputation goes back only seven years. It actually goes back all the way to his first full NHL season, when no less than a head of state called him by one of his infamous nicknames.

Marchand had played an important role in the Bruins’ 7-game victory over the Vancouver Canucks in the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals, and was visiting the White House along with the rest of the team when the then President of the United States, Barack Obama, referred to him as “Little Ball of Hate” while listing the contributions he had made to the team’s Stanley Cup winning run. It was one of the rare occasions when Marchand was caught off guard. “I almost blacked out there, [but] it was all in good fun,” he later admitted.

But even with the title that he inherited from Pat Verbeek and all the infamy that he had gathered over the years, Marchand couldn’t top one list that everyone thought he should have.

Who’s better (worse) than Brad Marchand?

In 2024, The Athletic conducted an anonymous poll that, in a sense, echoed the NHLPA poll that Marchand won. The question was, “Who’s the player in the league whose face you most want to punch?” Now, you’d probably expect Brad Marchand to top that list, right? So did a lot of the NHL players who voted in the poll. “I’m sure everybody has said Marchand, right?” one player said. “I mean, Marchand’s always a good (player) you want to punch,” echoed another. But they were wrong.

The poll was one by the Ottawa Senators’ Nick Cousins, who received 28.57% of the votes. Brad Marchand’s 14.97% was only good for second position (third if you consider “other” who received 16.33%). Well, to be fair to Cousins, he, too, has built quite a reputation for himself. A couple of months ago, as he was warming up for Game 3 against the Toronto Maple Leafs, he shot a puck at their goalie, Anthony Stolarz. Yes, during warmup. Stolarz was standing along the glass. He wasn’t even between the sticks. The result? He was fined $2,0833.33 by the NHL Department of Player Safety while the Senators were fined $25,000.

Still, there’s no denying that Brad Marchand not winning the pole was a bit of a shock. But right now, the veteran is fully focused on pulling out a hard-fought victory in Game 1. The game was well underway, and at the start of the intense third period, the score was deadlocked at 3-3. Do you think Brad’s Panthers have what it takes to come out on top in this thrilling matchup? Do you believe he will finish the season as the most hated player in the league?