Over 16 seasons with the Bruins, Marchand transformed himself from a fourth-line disrupter whose fire often spilled over in unwelcome ways — the suspensions, the licking incidents, the questionable hits — into a member of the best line in hockey, a potential future Hall of Fame player, and a captain. He had 976 points (422 goals, 554 assists) in 1,090 games in Boston. He’s since had nine more, four (two goals, two assists) in 10 games at the end of last season for Florida; six (three goals, three assists) in seven games this season.
“There will be a lot of different things I’m feeling at that time,” Marchand continued. “Obviously I’ve had a very long time there and built a family and a home there and it’s something that we miss. And as good as we have it here, obviously we’ve spent a lot more time there. It’s just what we were used to and comfortable with and kind of thought that it would always be that way. So, yeah, there’s a lot of emotions that go with it.”
The small favor for Marchand is how much of the team has turned over in recent seasons, how little of the current roster he played with for an extended amount of time, but they will be there, still, in David Pastrnak, in Charlie McAvoy, in Jeremy Swayman, even in Sean Kuraly, who returned to Boston this season, in assistant coach Chris Kelly.
Marchand had thought that Boston would be it for him, the place he was drafted (No. 71, 2006), the place he won the Stanley Cup, the place he would live after he retired, the team he might one day work for in his post-playing days.
Then, that was all upended.
Heading into the 2024-25 season, Marchand believed he and the Bruins would have an easy contract negotiation, a simple conversation. He thought it would be done quickly, that the Bruins understood that he wanted term, that he wanted to play for as long as he could, that he was committed.
That wasn’t how it went.
Then came the breakdown in communications, the silence and, eventually, the trade.
For the first time in his NHL career, Marchand was not a member of the Bruins. He was part of the Panthers, a swap that would see him storm through the Stanley Cup Playoffs, with 20 points (10 goals, 10 assists) in 23 games, helping anchor a line with Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen that their playoff opponents rarely had answers for. He made Dairy Queen into a Panthers thing, made himself a candidate for the Conn Smythe Trophy, which goes to the playoffs MVP.
Made Florida his home.
But none of that, the divorce, the Stanley Cup, the relocation for the next six years, after signing a stunning six-year, $31.5 million contract with the Panthers, lessened his impact on the Bruins, on Boston, on the city he had called home since he was 21 years old.
“I think Boston, in general, as fans, as players, the ownership down, it was always about kind of being that blue-collar, hard worker,” Marchand said. “That’s what we heard a lot about, what our culture was based on, competing and working hard.
“That’s really what I tried to do and whether I did it always in the right way or sometimes the wrong way, just because I cared and wanted to win and wanted to try and push myself and people around me to be better. I learned that from the guys that led me and I followed and I just tried to do the same thing.”
While it was clear that those heady days of the 2010s Bruins, when they went to the Stanley Cup Final three times and won the Cup in 2011, were led by Zdeno Chara and Patrice Bergeron, Marchand brought his own gifts to the table, his own imprint.
“The work ethic for Brad was incredible,” Bergeron said. “I think he would always bring people into the fight. I think he had a gift for bringing people together and if you’re having a bad [stretch] or the team is not playing well, he’s always the one that would create a spark and make us get back into the game.”
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