LOS ANGELES — The question wasn’t even out before Michel Therrien broke into his familiar throaty laugh.

So, the Montreal Canadiens coach was asked, what it is going to be like coaching well-known Bruins irritant Brad Marchand in Sunday’s NHL All-Star Game?

“Well, you know what? He’s a guy in the last two years who has really impressed me,” said Therrien, once he stopped chuckling. “First of all, he still plays with an edge. And I think he has to play like that. But you look at what he did for Team Canada, winning the gold medal, it’s pretty impressive. You grow as a hockey player. We’ve had some battles, Montreal-Boston. We’ve had some rivalries with our hockey club, but the one with Boston has been pretty special over the years. You build a rivalry in the playoffs and we’ve played them so many times.

“It’s going to be fun (coaching Marchand). First of all it’s a privilege, for coaches as well as the players, and it gives the players and coaches an opportunity to get to know each other instead of always fighting.”

The appreciation of Marchand’s skill level has never been higher. After scoring a career-high 37 goals last season, he pulled off a spectacular star turn for Team Canada at the World Cup of Hockey, where he could have, and probably should have, been named the MVP instead of Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby. With four goals in his last two games to keep the Bruin’s season afloat, Marchand is currently ranked fifth in league scoring.

Marchand’s All-Star status is no fluke.

“Good for him,” former linemate Tyler Seguin of the Dallas Stars said. “His career is just getting better and better it seems. It’s been getting (better) in Boston, then at the World Cup and now he’s here at his first All-Star Game. It’s well deserved.”

So is Marchand’s reputation as a pest who sometimes crosses the line of being feisty to being dirty. He has been suspended four times and fined twice in his career. And lest anyone forget, Marchand kept it fresh in everyone’s memory when he clipped Detroit’s Niklas Kronwall from behind with a dangerous trip last week. He was very fortunate to escape with just a fine from the league.

Don’t hold your breath on his ever changing, some say. It is who he is.

“And I don’t think he wants it to be fully changed,” Seguin said.

The Philadelphia Flyers’ Wayne Simmonds played with Marchand on the 2008 world junior team for Canada that won gold.

“Marchie’s always been the same player,” Simmonds said. “He was on our first line with Claude Giroux (Flyers) and Kyle Turris (Ottawa Senators). He’s always been that guy who’s probably always been told he’s not going to make it because of his size. But then you look at him and he’s probably one of the toughest guys in the league.

“Just the way he plays the game, I always try to hit him and he never goes over. I’m probably the one that’s falling over trying to hit him.”

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