The Marchand as pest convo is going down the rabbit hole, lol. It's true most teams have an irritating player who puts in no small effort to annoy opponents in an effort to knock them off their game and hopefully draw penalties, those efforts often cross the line. Marchand is an instigator of the first order and does plenty of crap he shouldn't, if he played for Toronto we'd want his head on a stick. I'm not about to deny it. What I will deny is he's leading the game back to the "Dark Ages" since that is preposterous, we aren't talking about a Sean Avery, Tom Wilson or even a Nazem Kadri here. TBH I'd just as soon he take it down a few notches, he is far too valuable a player to be in the sin bin or worse, suspended. And therein lies the rub, Marchand draws attention beyond what the level of his antics should due to his visibility and largely unapologetic demeanor. Marchand is only marginally more dirty than Sydney Crysby (who the league has had knee pads on for since he was in Juniors) but he embraces it rather than pretending he is a choirboy. Outside of Crysby refs also generally allow opponents to take more liberties with instigators, a consequential fact of hockey life that Marchy has brought on himself.
Going back to the big bad days , the other teams goon was always a dirtbag and yours a hero. That's carried over to today's pests. Marchy may be a rat but he's our rat, I can love the guys ability but still recognize that as he has developed there are parts of his (ahem) game that don't fit his skill level and I wish he was capable of leaving them behind. I just refuse to accept anything that lumps him in with the dirtbags, he isn't out there trying to behead anyone like an Avery, Kadri or Wilson.
