It's been two full days since the Vancouver Canucks and the Boston Bruins met Saturday morning for the first time since the Stanley Cup Final, and clearly, little has changed. Not only do both teams maintain severe dislike for one another, but the postgame war of words remains as entertaining as ever.
After Claude Julien defended Brad Marchand's low-bridge hit on Sami Salo as an act of self-defense (Marchand apparently mistaking Salo for the much more intimidating Boo Radley), Alain Vigneault was very direct in his opinion of this interpretation of the events, saying, "That's stupid. That's a stupid comment."
Vigneault added the following:
"Marchand -- this is just my feeling on this -- some day he's going to get it. Somebody is going to say enough is enough and they're going to hurt the kid, because he plays to hurt players and in my mind if the league doesn't take care of it, somebody else will.
Julien was presented with Vigneault's comments during his morning presser, and he responded:
I think it's pretty hypocritical, everything that's been going on. It's unfortunate because, you know, sometimes you gotta look in your backyard. We all know that [Vigneault's] got the same type of players on his team and they've all done the same thing. You just have to look at Burrows putting his blade in Thornton's throat. It's so hypocritical. It's unfortunate. I guess we're stupid, we're idiots, they're the smartest team in the league.
I'm sure the "I guess we're stupid" line is going to get a lot of play, but if you ask me, the real gem here was Julien's response to Vigneault's "He's gonna get it" comment regarding Marchand:
"We all know that that comment's been said before and it didn't turn out well, so we'll leave it at that."
My stars, I do believe Julien just made a Todd Bertuzzi reference. Brad Marchand approves of this low blow.
As an amusing aside, if the Canucks win Monday night in Florida, Alain Vigneault becomes the Western Conference's coaching representative at the NHL All-Star Game. Julien will be there as well by virtue of winning the Cup. Considering both guys could suffer a psychotic meltdown by being forced to coach a team that doesn't backcheck, things could get interesting.