Zadorov Is Scratched for Discipline, Then His Agent Teases Toronto

Boston is winning, and Marco Sturm scratched one of his leaders anyway. The Bruins coach made defenseman Nikita Zadorov a healthy scratch for Saturday’s game in Los Angeles, citing the double minor Zadorov took against Anaheim the night before and a discipline issue the staff had been raising for a while, NESN and Gino Hard report. Boston won 4-1 without him, and on Sunday his agent turned a one game message into a public story with four words on X.

Why did Sturm scratch Zadorov on a winning streak?

Because the penalties had become the story of Zadorov’s season. On Friday against Anaheim he was whistled for elbowing Frank Vatrano and then knocked Vatrano to the ice for a roughing minor, a double minor on one shift with Boston trailing 2-1 late in the second period, Gino Hard reports, citing the Boston Globe’s Jim McBride. Boston recovered to win that game 4-2 as well, and Sturm was not interested in letting the result cover the shift.

The season numbers explain why this one stuck. Zadorov has 29 penalty minutes through eight games, the most on the Bruins and the second most in the league, Gino Hard reports. Inside The Rink adds the longer pattern: he led the NHL in penalty minutes last season with 152 across 81 games, and he was at the top of that leaderboard the year before too. Physical play is why Boston employs him. The scratch is about where that edge keeps landing his team, short-handed at bad moments.

What exactly did Sturm say?

He praised the player and benched him in the same breath. “He’s a tremendous player and leader for our team,” Sturm said before the Kings game, in comments Gino Hard carried. “I think we’ve been mentioning for a while his discipline on the ice. I think that’s something he just needs to be better [with]. He was not happy, but he’s a great human being and he’s a competitor. And I do believe he comes stronger after this message.”

Asked whether Zadorov understood, Sturm said he did not know, and that the two had a quick conversation on Saturday morning, roughly 90 minutes before the scratch was announced, according to Boston Hockey Now. “This is coach’s decision, and I do believe there’s another level in him,” Sturm said. “The discipline part, I think he just needs to be smarter, and that’s all what it is.” It is not a new move for this coach: Inside The Rink notes Sturm left Casey Mittelstadt out against Colorado last season, in what would have been Mittelstadt’s first game against his former team, because his play had not earned the occasion.

How did Boston look without him?

Fine, which is part of the message. Jonathan Aspirot drew in on the blue line next to Will Borgen, Sean Kuraly returned up front, and Pavel Zacha was also missing with an upper body injury Sturm called day to day, NESN reports. Los Angeles scored 31 seconds in, David Pastrnak tied it in the second, and Marat Khusnutdinov put Boston ahead with 6:24 left before Elias Lindholm and JJ Peterka added empty net goals. The win was Boston’s fifth straight, at 7-2-0, on a trip that has swept the three California teams. A healthy scratch lands differently when the team keeps winning: the coach can afford it, and the player knows it.

The league’s other discipline stories this month have run through officials and hearings. Frank Nazar’s match penalty for a high hit on Bo Horvat ended in a two game suspension from Player Safety, and Jesper Wallstedt called a hit on Kirill Kaprizov a dirty play after the price on the ice came to two minutes. Zadorov’s case never reached a hearing room. His own coach priced it, at one game in the press box.

What did his agent actually say, and why did it travel?

Four words. A fan told Dan Milstein on X that his client “wouldn’t be treated like this in Toronto”, and Milstein replied on Sunday: “No he would not”, Yardbarker reports. That was the whole post. It was enough to put a 6 foot 5 defenseman who is on his sixth NHL team into Toronto’s rumor mill for a day, helped by timing Yardbarker noted: Elliotte Friedman has reported the Maple Leafs are looking to add a difference maker on defense and are willing to pay a premium asset for one.

Yardbarker is careful about what the reply is not. It is not a trade request, Zadorov himself has said nothing, and it is unclear whether Milstein was speaking on his client’s behalf or reacting as an agent who is active on social media and answers fans. Bruins supporters mostly read it as making too much of a one game benching on a 7-2 team. Leafs fans, predictably, read it as an invitation. The Ekman-Larsson hit that drew no penalty at all earlier this month shows the other end of the discipline scale in this league: the same week can hold a hit with no call, a suspension from a hearing, and a scratch handed down by a player’s own coach, and only one of the three was fully in the club’s control.

What happens next?

The lineup in Dallas on Tuesday is the first answer. Sturm’s own words point to a one game message, saying he believes Zadorov will be “back to normal and even better after that”, and Boston’s road trip ends against the Stars, NESN reports. If Zadorov sits again, the story changes from message to rift, and Milstein’s reply will read differently. If he plays, the remaining question is the penalty count: 29 minutes in eight games is the number his coach has now publicly attached to him, and every minor he takes from here gets measured against Saturday. Montreal’s overtime record night, when Cole Caufield set a franchise mark against Buffalo, came on the same Saturday, a reminder that October storylines in this league set fast and are judged just as fast.

Update, November 1: the message did not hold, and the league has now fined him

Two weeks after the scratch, Zadorov’s discipline problem produced a league fine rather than another benching. The NHL Department of Player Safety fined him $5,000, the maximum allowed, for roughing Chicago’s Alex Vlasic on October 31, after he punched Vlasic while Vlasic was on the ice during a scrum, as the fine in full shows. He still leads the NHL in penalty minutes, now with 47 in 14 games. Sturm’s October message, that Zadorov just needs to be smarter, is now a documented pattern rather than a warning.