Gary Roberts: “I would love to come back for a few shifts against Marchand”

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Brad Marchand has plenty of enemies around the rest of the league, and players that would love to get a piece of him given his actions on the ice.

Apparently that extends to former NHL players as well as former Toronto Maple Leafs tough guy Gary Roberts said he’d love to return to the league just to get a piece of No. 63 for the Boston Bruins. Marchand, of course, had his share of run-ins with the Maple Leafs during the playoffs last season including the licking incident with Leo Komarov both during the regular season, and then again in the playoffs as well.

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The 52-year-old Roberts was asked half-jokingly about a return to the NHL after last playing for Tampa Bay way back in 2009 – a year before Marchand became a regular with the Black and Gold – and without prompting went right to a mention of the B’s top left winger.   

“I would love to come back for a few shifts against Brad Marchand. He’s made himself into a heck of a hockey player. Love the way he plays…100 percent. I just don’t like the sideshow stuff that he does,” said Roberts during an interview with the Leafs Lunch show on TSN 1050 in Toronto. “I don’t think there’s a place for stuff like that in the game. If somebody is allowed to act that way on the ice then somebody [else] should be allowed to do something about it. Unfortunately that’s not the case.”

The 6-foot-2, 215-pound Roberts had over 2,500 penalty minutes in his long, distinguished NHL career as a player with both skill and brute force, so chances are that Marchand was going to steer clear of a player like that regardless of the era. But it’s a credit to Marchand’s rabble-rousing ways that he can even manage to annoy and agitate the guys that haven’t even played in the league in the last 10 years right along with the current rank-and-file at the NHL level.

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