Jeremy Roenick has never been one to keep his opinions close to his chest and let it all out on a former teammate on Sunday night.
The former NHLer, who's now a commentator for Versus in the U.S., called out former San Jose Sharks teammate Patrick Marleau after Sunday's loss to Detroit, saying his performance was, "gutless" and also questioned the former team captain's heart.
"An unbelievably poor effort from Patrick Marleau," Roenick said on Versus. "A gutless, gutless, performance by Patrick Marleau. Count them - zero points in this series. And he had a game like that."
When a question came up about whether Marleau was hurt on a play by Detroit's Pavel Datsyuk, Roenick responded saying, "Oh, yeah, he got hurt," and pointed to his heart.
The 20-year NHL veteran then backed up his statements on Twitter later in the evening.
"Marleau has his fans, and that's great," he tweeted. "I am not one of them and won't pretend to be! I love the sharks w a passion and think the fans deserve a better effort than Marleau has given in this series."
When asked about Roenick's comments, Marleau said that he can't worry about things out of his control.
"I can't control what people say or anything like that," Marleau said. "I have to focus on what I can control and that's what I'm going to do."
Marleau's teammates were quick to come to the defence of their former captain.
"He's a great hockey player and we still think he's a great teammate," said Joe Thornton.
"[Marleau] has scored a lot of goals - and a lot of big goals - for this team. We realize it's a team sport and we all have to be better, that's just the bottom line."
"I don't think we listen to anything the media says so it's not going to affect us; it's not going to affect [Marleau]," Dany Heatley added.
Sharks coach Todd McLellan also stood up for Marleau, but added that he, like the rest of the team, must pick up his play.
"You look at the big picture. Right now it's a micro piece of his play and we need him to be better," said McLellan. "It's as simple as that. We need him to be better offensively and defensively. But again, I'm talking about one individual. There are others on that line, there is a pair of defencemen on the ice at that given time, and there's a goaltender. There are a number of other people that have to pick up their play."
Roenick has been criticized since he spoke out on Sunday, from local and national hockey pundits alike. "Jeremy Roenick is interested only in furthering his broadcast career, said Sharks TV announcer Randy Hahn on Twitter. "His take on Marleau was WAY over the line. Many bridges were burned."
