Bruins
“I truly don’t think we win a Stanley Cup without him.”
Fourteen years after helping the Boston Bruins win a Stanley Cup as a pugnacious rookie, Brad Marchand finally got to hoist hockey’s greatest prize once again.
Except this time, the 37-year-old forward wasn’t donning a black-and-gold sweater.
Marchand’s whirlwind season came to a close on Tuesday night in Sunrise, Florida — with the former Bruins captain helping the Panthers win their second straight Stanley Cup by way of a 5-1 clinching victory over the Edmonton Oilers.
“I definitely appreciate it way more,” Marchand told ESPN postgame of winning a second Stanley Cup. “I mean, when you enter your first year you don’t understand how difficult it is and the trials and tribulations you have to go [through] to be part of something like this. And I’ve embraced every second of this. It’s been incredible.”
Florida’s six-game triumph against the Oilers makes the Panthers the first team to win back-to-back titles since the Penguins accomplished the feat in 2016 and 2017.
Even though Marchand was a late addition to the Panthers after Boston made the call to trade him, the future Hall-of-Famer played an essential role in helping Florida repeat.
After trudging through a lost season in Boston and suffering an injury weeks ahead of the NHL trade deadline, Marchand played some of the best hockey of his career after eventually joining Florida’s lineup in late Marchand.
Marchand closed out Florida’s playoff run with 20 points (10 goals, 10 assists) in 23 games, while scoring the game winner in both of the Panthers’ overtime games (Game 3 vs. Toronto and Game 2 vs. Oilers).
Both of those tallies came at critical moments — helping Florida avoid falling into a 3-0 series deficit against Toronto in the second round while later preventing Edmonton from taking the first two games on home ice during the Stanley Cup Final.
Along with submitting a three-point performance in Game 7 against Toronto, Marchand was a monster during the six-game set against the Oilers — scoring six goals in the series.
Since 1980, only three players acquired at the NHL trade deadline scored more points with their new team during the Stanley Cup Playoffs (Marian Hossa, Mikko Rantanen, and Marian Gaborik) than Marchand’s 20 points.
“What he’s meant to this team. … I truly don’t think we win a Stanley Cup without him,” former foe Sam Bennett said of Marchand postgame. “His leadership, his will to win, it’s inspiring. I was telling him before every game, ‘We’re going to follow you.’ And we did. He was a dog every night.”
Marchand will have some decisions to make in the coming weeks as a pending free agent who should be in land to secure a hefty pay day. But for now, the former Bruins winger is relishing reaching the summit in pro hockey after an extended absence.
“You never know how things are going to play out,” Marchand said, per The Athletic’s Chris Johnston. “I just wanted to come in and buy in and be part of the group and play whatever role I was put in and do it to the best I possibly can. When you walk into this room and you see what guys are putting themselves through every day to prepare and to sacrifice and how dialed in they are, you just kind of follow suit.
“They’ve built an incredible culture in this room. It’s very easy to follow. And when you do that, you just leave it all on the ice. We have a good team, so good things happen in here and we have a lot of fun.”
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