Marchand era ends in Boston

The last laughs I remember from members of the Boston Bruins during the 2010 Stanley Cup playoffs were those of two players who were not playing: Back-up goaltender Tim Thomas and a member of the Black Aces named Brad Marchand.

Brad Marchand modeled the Bruins’ centennial season heritage sweater before the 2023-24 season at Logan Airport’s JetBlue hangar. Before him, Brandon Carlo and Milan Lucic modeled their home and away models. None of the three are with the Bruins after the March 7 trade deadline saw Carlo go to Toronto and Marchand to Florida. Marchand’s departure marks the end of any roster link to the 2011 Stanley Cup championship. Photo by Mick Colageo

The Bruins were in Philadelphia, leading the teams’ second-round series when the two players came back from a practice session tossing barbs each other’s way, all the while beaming with a joyful enthusiasm fresh from competition.

The Aces, made up of reserve NHL players and AHLers, followed the varsity onto the Wells Fargo Center ice, where Thomas had just robbed Marchand of a goal on a blistering wrist shot aimed just under the crossbar.

In a matter of months, Marchand had come a long way from the miserable NHL-debut stint that saw him last 20 games and rack up 20 penalty minutes and one assist. It was back to Providence for the second-year pro until the Bruins decided to reward his AHL efforts by bringing him up for the NHL postseason, albeit as a member of the practice squad.

One year removed from his first of two Vezina Trophy seasons, Thomas was ailing with a hip injury that he kept to himself while losing his starting role to rookie goaltender Tuukka Rask. Amidst the hockey, Thomas kept his joy and his sense of humor, engaging the brash rookie Marchand as they returned from their session.

It was the beginning of something special for both players who would capture the Cup together a year later. I’ve wondered in the comfy retrospect of Marchand’s many accomplishments as a pro what might have happened had Coach Claude Julien put Marchand in the Boston lineup.

Flyers center Mike Richards deconstructed David Krejci’s wrist during Game 3 on a play that would see the puck slide over to Milan Lucic, who would pass to Miroslav Satan for his final goal of those playoffs. The Bruins led the Flyers 3-0 in the series, and Satan had led the Bruins in playoff scoring to that point. But without Krejci at center, he was helpless to generate his own offense and went pointless over the series’ final four games. The series infamously went to Philadelphia in seven.

Maybe Marchand wouldn’t have become the player he did in 2011 had he been given that chance during the 2010 playoffs, but maybe the Bruins save that series from slipping away if he plays.

Fifteen years later through the glory of 2011, the close calls of 2013 and 2019, the amazing 2022-23 campaign and the captaincy following his pal Patrice Bergeron’s retirement, a banged-up and worn-down but defiantly competitive Marchand was traded to the rival Florida Panthers.

Marchand couldn’t see eye to eye on term for a contract extension in Boston, and seeing the returns coming to selling teams at today’s trade deadline, Bruins General Manager Don Sweeney moved on a deal that nets Boston a second-round draft pick that becomes a first-rounder (in 2027 or 2028) only if the Florida Panthers make the Eastern Conference Final and if Marchand plays in at least half the Panthers’ playoff games.

Rink Rap likes his chances better than theirs.

You don’t need me to tell you how rarely teams win the Cup and go deep in the playoffs in their sequel season. There are exceptions; Marchand hopes to help make Florida one of them.

Inspired by seller’s-market returns, the Bruins got a first-round pick in sending right defenseman Brandon Carlo to Toronto.

In another significant deadline-day deal, right-shot center Charlie Coyle went to Colorado, buttressing the Avalanche at the center position already featuring Nathan MacKinnon and now augmented by longtime Islanders stalwart Brock Nelson. Coyle will lead Colorado’s bottom six, as he had in Boston for several years.

Picks, young players, and more picks, the day was full of them switching teams, and this time the Bruins got in on it. But Sweeney insisted the Bruins are not planning on becoming less competitive. Realizing that changes need to be made, management was compelled to engage this active market, so things that would normally not happen (such as trading players with term such as Carlo and Coyle) did happen.

The question bugging me throughout the season of speculation was if management was conflicted and believed that, without the dysfunction that defined the season’s start and took on a life of its own in various manifestations such as poor team defense, an utter lack of resiliency in road games, a propensity for giving up goals either at the end of a period of play or within two minutes after scoring an important goal themselves, given a do-over, was there any abiding belief that they were right in 2024 about the plan?

“I think you’re right, that those are the internal struggles you have as a manager, to chart the proper course. If we just run it back, are we risking repeating some of the same mistakes? Have we improved enough? Can we continue to improve? And that’s the tipping point, making a decision that says we’ve had a good run,” said Sweeney while meeting with the media late this afternoon at Warrior Arena in Brighton. “We did not complete the ultimate goal. We were close, as close as you’re probably going to get, other than going to overtime in that game.

“And those are tremendous players (who got traded). They’ve been tremendous Bruins. And now it’s, well, we’ve got another wave that we have to find and see if we can build back to that area. And I don’t think we’re going to be far away from being a competitive team that we should and could have been this year for a lot of the reasons, no excuses from the standpoint, injuries happen to everybody.

“Getting through those things, the series of games, if you break things down, even last night’s hockey game is just one of those things. It’s like, man, like they played well last night, but they couldn’t finish the job in the situation. You know, again, unlucky. But you know, luck is only part of it. Injuries are only part of it. And I think you have to be honest with yourself. I think I was honest previously in saying I was going to take what was acknowledged as a cautious approach, more to the spending aspect and where our team was at. And clearly, we looked at the opportunities in front of us to change the direction of things without just tearing things down. And that’s not been part of the DNA of this organization and what will be.”

Sweeney insists the Bruins have brought back viable NHL players in the trades, referencing center Casey Mittelstadt, formerly of the Avalanche. Sweeney called him a different player from Coyle but identified him as another player (like Coyle before him and Pavel Zacha and Morgan Geekie) whose games have elevated in Boston.

The Bruins will have an entirely different look when they take the ice on Saturday afternoon in Tampa against the Lightning.

Eight of the 20 players in uniform for the Bruins’ Oct. 8 season opener in Sunrise on the Panthers’ banner night are either injured or no longer with the Bruins. Of the eight, three constituted Boston’s top three defensemen when they were together, and four of the other five were top-nine forwards.

It’s been that kind of year but one that leaves the Bruins with more draft choices over the next few years (along with the first pick reflecting their own position, which keeps improving as they fall in the standings).