A year ago, Sam Bennett caught then Boston Bruin Brad Marchand across the side of the head with a rabbit punch at speed. The blow was so sneaky that only one camera angle caught it. Marchand missed two games. Bennett got away with it. Florida won the series.

Now the two men are like Frick and Frack. You can’t separate them. They came out together after Marchand won Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final and began pumping out Dairy Queen memes. As you’re reading this, they’ll be booking an off-season window to shoot the commercial.

More than big goals or low blows, this is Marchand’s magic – he creates a scene. I mean that in the Andy Warhol sense. Wherever he is, everyone around him suddenly becomes interesting.

Marchand’s 37 now, and at the height of his powers. As much as anyone, he’s set the tone for the last 15 years in the NHL. It got smaller. He’s small. It got faster. He’s fast. It got mean again. He never stopped.

If he can lead another team to a Stanley Cup, it’s fair to ask – is Marchand the best player of his generation?

Statistically, no. That’s Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin.

Accomplishment-wise, also no. That would be Crosby alone.

But there’s more to art than succeeding. You get points for style as well. Marchand has more than the next 10 guys combined.

It’s down to your point of view. How do you see the NHL? Is it a game of honour played by men who do things the correct way, or is it a gladiator pit and nobody cares how you kill the lions, as long as they get killed?

Crosby emblemizes hockey as it wishes to be. Marchand represents hockey as it is. The native of Hammonds Plains, N.S. is the embodiment of America’s guiding principle – if you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’.

Marchand was drafted 71st overall (so much for scouts). Initially, his level wasn’t high enough for the NHL. The first half-dozen of his seasons were good, but not great. That’s the reason Marchand has never represented Canada at an Olympics.

He is the player teams like the Leafs kid themselves can be made, but are only born – those who will themselves to greatness.

Initially, Marchand’s role on the Bruins was disruption. Anywhere else, that tendency to lose the plot might have set the tone for the club.

In Boston, Marchand was the exception that proved the rule. It was Zdeno Chara’s and Patrice Bergeron’s team – which is to say, a place for adults. Marchand played the toddler who sometimes had to be taken outside to cool down. He never chafed in the role, and they never tried to fix him. So, eventually, Marchand fixed himself.

He’s just as nasty, but in a more coherent way. Can you imagine Marchand licking someone in a playoff game today? Okay, yes, but only in a fun way.

I’m still sure he would do just about anything to win, including some pretty awful things. That’s the difference between him and a William Nylander.

It’s this duality in Marchand – a mean-spirited bully on the ice; an easygoing charmer off it – that attracts people.

Most top NHLers are one thing or the other. Bennett is Marchand without the wit. Crosby is Marchand without the ugliness. Only Marchand has real depth of character.

The other secret to Marchand? He wins.

Nobody likes a cheap-shot artist who loses, and nobody rates a scorer who’s never mattered in a big game. You like anybody who gets results.

While Crosby and Ovechkin’s teams have fallen off near the end, Marchand is still manufacturing success. He isn’t the best player on an already great Florida team, but he is the most present. He gets off the best lines and draws the camera to him, regardless of what he’s doing. He’s the only real star on a team that’s theoretically full of them.

Contrast that to the other side. Would you rather have Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl on your team? Probably. Would you rather be stuck in an elevator with them? Probably not.

Marchand is bursting with life whenever he speaks, while the Oilers big pair act like they’re being told to bend over and cough.

Two things matter in sports – win, and be entertaining while you do it. Has anyone in recent NHL memory fulfilled that brief better than Marchand? Is it even close?

Let’s imagine everything goes as well as it can in the final act of Marchand’s career. He wins this Cup, re-signs with Florida, and maybe wins another. He gets a key role on Canada’s team in Milan, and wins there, too. He has the sense to leave when he is still in fighting trim, so no one has to watch him fall apart. Then he moves into commentary, where he could be the new Don Cherry that Canadian media needs, but is too afraid to build.

Even if all that happens, no one will ever say that Marchand was the best. That would be too injurious to hockey’s self-image. Every generation needs a Crosby – a player beyond reproach, who upset no one and said nothing. McDavid is already being groomed for the role. His successor has yet to make himself obvious, but he’s active now.

That sort of player would have no purpose without a Marchand to be compared to. Not quite a bad guy, but definitely not the hero of the story. The joker, maybe, or an agent of chaos.

Crosby et al may be the heart of hockey’s mythos. They’re the ones they write books about. But, for me, the Marchands are the soul of the game. They give it moral complexity.

Which is the more valuable commodity is an aesthetic question, rather than a statistical one.