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Revisiting the Brad Marchand trade and second-guesses for the Bruins
"Everything has to line up perfectly. My situation is a perfect example of that. I shouldnāt have been here."
COMMENTARY
The more things change, the more they seem to remain the same.
As evidenced by the grey peppered across his scraggly playoff stubble, Brad Marchand is no longer the 23-year-old agent of chaos that socked Daniel Sedin in the face and helped the Bruins win their first Stanley Cup in 39 years.
Rather, he’s now a 37-year-old agent of chaos — hardened from years of missteps in the hike to hockey’s highest summit, but still the shot of on-ice adrenaline who helped the Florida Panthers cement their dynasty on Tuesday night.
Eight months after Marchand and the rest of the Bruins opened a season with so much promise at Florida’s Amerant Bank Arena, the former Boston captain closed out the most eventful year of his Hall-of-Fame career hoisting hockey’s most coveted prize above that same ice.
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It’s a sight that Bruins fans — and Marchand himself — didn’t exactly expect to play out during the 2024-25 campaign.
“It feels completely different,” Marchand said postgame, per NHL.com. “I have so much more respect and appreciation for how difficult it was to get here and how hard it is and the amount of things that need to go right to win. There’s so many great teams in the league and so much talk about this guy deserves it, that guy deserves it, and you want to see certain guys win.
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“But everything has to line up perfectly. My situation is a perfect example of that. I shouldn’t have been here. But it worked out – and I’m enjoying the hell out of it.”
It’s a cruel twist of irony that Marchand lifted his second Stanley Cup with the Panthers.
The Oilers might find themselves in the same boat, but the Panthers have held court as the proverbial boogeymen of the Bruins over the last few years, slamming the contention window of the Patrice Bergeron era shut and tormenting Boston by way of rabbit punches, lopsided losses, and back-breaking overtime results.
Granted, few Bruins fans are taking umbrage with Marchand donning Panthers red. Not when the end result was Boston’s former captain and beloved winger finally getting the chance to win another Stanley Cup.
Perhaps melancholy is the apt descriptor here when it comes to gauging Bruins fans at this moment — with Boston’s most dedicated supporters going through the familiar exercise of “what could have been” with their latest franchise fixture.
Perhaps it’s stirred up by the lackluster haul the Red Sox secured after trading star slugger Rafael Devers to the Giants earlier this week.
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Revisiting the Bruins’ decision to ship Marchand to Florida just ahead of the NHL trade deadline has been a popular talking point over the last few weeks, given both the seemingly underwhelming return Boston secured, and the postseason warpath Marchand waged with his new team.
When Don Sweeney capped off a trade deadline sell-off by dealing away Marchand, it was a move designed to recoup additional draft capital, especially given the likelihood that both player and team were unable to bridge the gap on terms of a new contract.
The return from Florida? A conditional first-round pick, which only became tangible if the Panthers won at least two rounds this postseason, and Marchand played in at least half of Florida’s playoff games.
The Panthers’ playoff conquest — and Marchand’s critical role in that endeavor — ensured that Boston would add that first-round pick to its growing draft haul.
On a Florida team already stacked with talent, Marchand was a force, scoring 20 points (10 goals, 10 assists) over the Panthers’ 23 playoff games. He scored six goals in the Stanley Cup Final against the Oilers, becoming the first player in NHL history to score five-plus goals in multiple Stanley Cup Finals … with different teams.
It was vintage Marchand, who hounded pucks with reckless abandon, protected the biscuit like a dog with a bone, and drove the opposition mad both during and after the whistle.
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For years, it was a joy that only Bruins fans would relish as Marchand tormented teams on every shift.
Now, it’s a sentiment shared by one of the Bruins’ most hated rivals in the Panthers, who reaped the benefits of one of the best trade-deadline pickups in league history.
By that same extension, the Bruins only recouping a first-round pick for their captain means that this was also one of the more lopsided deals in recent memory, right?
Despite that discourse sprouting up in recent days, it’s lacking a lot of the context that was present when Boston made the call to cut the cord with its top left wing.
When the Bruins dealt Marchand, the writing was on the wall that both sides were not going to come to terms on a new contract — at least at the asking price that the veteran was seeking.
After years spent taking below-market deals, Marchand wanted to get paid appropriately — as was his right. But with the Bruins staring at a lost season and the bill coming due for a team in need of a reset, Boston was not in the proper spot to hand him a new contract worth at least $7 million per season.
Further complicating matters was the injury that Marchand suffered on March 1 against Pittsburgh, which further sapped away some of his value given the uncertainty of when he’d return to the ice.
And when the Bruins decided that trading Marchand as opposed to letting him walk for noting in free agency was the proper course of action, they also put him in the driver’s seat as far as finding the right destination.
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With just an eight-team no-trade list in place, Marchand easily could have been dealt to a team on the West Coast — with a team like the Kings (desperate to get over the hump over beating Edmonton in the first round) likely offering a higher package than the one put forth by Florida.
But with Marchand wanting to stay East and identifying the Panthers as an ideal destination, the Bruins shrunk their market to accommodate their franchise winger.
Perhaps the Bruins should have put team over player in search of the best return — as ruthless as that might have been from the perspective of sending out a franchise icon out on bad terms.
You can also argue that, if the return was what it ended up being for Marchand, the Bruins should have just held onto the veteran. Of course, that would have been even worse for Boston had Marchand opted to pursue a hefty deal in free agency and walked for nothing.
Or maybe the Bruins should have just ponied up and handed Marchand that deal worth more than $7 million annually for the next few seasons.
Marchand’s stellar play this postseason might have justified that price tag, but the feeling is that Bruins fans would be torn if a team in need of a fresh start handed a 37-year-old Marchand that deal in March.
The Bruins certainly aren’t without fault in this entire saga.
It’s a shame that the Bruins’ implosion prompted the team to move Marchand in the first place.
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And after watching Marchand thrive as more of a middle-six force with Florida, it’s unfortunate that years of poor drafting and developing led to a roster where an elder Marchand was still tasked with being a first-line stalwart in Boston, as opposed to more of the complementary force he was on a Panthers squad teaming with talent.
But when it comes to the trade itself, the Bruins’ opted to do right by their captain in an untenable situation.
As painful as it is to see Marchand reach the hockey mountaintop with another team, that reality should trump one in which a weary Marchand remained in Boston for a few more months on a rudderless team — before potentially skating for greener pastures elsewhere.
With no contract on the horizon with Boston, Marchand opted to bet on himself.
And given his track record over the years, it should come as little surprise that the star winger has once again left a lot of doubters shaking their heads after his latest triumph.
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