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Vancouver Canucks forward Brandon Prust was fined $5,000 Sunday for spearing Boston Bruins Brad Marchand in the groin in a game between the two clubs Saturday night. A fine is meant to give a player something to think about and consider changing his ways.

So how did Prust react when he received his fine? 

"Best money I ever spent," Prust said with little indication he was joking about it.

Oh, OK.

Prust said he expected the fine and also thought that Marchand "sold it pretty good" because the below-the-belt jab "wasn't that hard."

If you haven't managed to see the incident yet, here it is again:

Somewhere Marchand is probably snickering. He obviously was able to get under Prust’s skin, which is exactly what he seems to enjoy so much, on top of producing at a fairly high rate this season. However, Marchand may also want to take a quick look at the schedule to see when the Bruins and Canucks meet again. He might want to throw some extra padding under his hockey pants for Jan. 21.

Prust’s reaction to the fine is hardly surprising. As we noted in an earlier post, the monetary penalty for below-the-belt spears has done little to change behaviors as that mode of retaliation has become pretty common over the last few years.

So the $5,000 drop-in-the-bucket monetary penalty for a guy earning $2 million this season wasn’t enough. Shocker.

It’s also not surprising because Prust's actions are the kind of Marchand brings out of the opposition. He’s obviously no choir boy. The Bruins agitator was even smiling about the incident in his postgame media scrum. That’s part of his game and, based on the number of players that would probably have loved to do exactly what Prust did, he’s pretty good at it.

Brandon Prust thinks his spear on Brad Marchand was worth the fine. (USATSI)
Brandon Prust thinks his spear on Brad Marchand was worth the fine. (USATSI)