Look out, rest of NHL. Brad Marchand finally looks like himself again.
On the surface, it might seem crazy to suggest that Marchand didn’t for much of the first two months after his return from double hip surgery. He’s been better than a point per game pretty much all season, which is obviously pretty impressive.
But a lot of that damage was coming on the power play. His 5-on-5 production was well below the level we’ve come to expect, and that Marchand expects from himself. He had 23 points through his first 22 games, but just seven of them had come at even strength.
Marchand was open about the fact that he didn’t feel quite back to normal, that his conditioning wasn’t yet where he wanted it, and that he understood his return would continue to be a work-in-progress.
Well, the progress is getting more and more noticeable. Three more points in Saturday night’s 4-2 win over the Sharks give Marchand nine in his last five games. The 5-on-5 production has picked up, with six of those points, including two on Saturday, coming at even strength.
The rest of the NHL, or at least the Kings and Sharks, may be tempted to blame referee Furman South. He was the official who missed a blatant trip against Marchand on Thursday, setting off a meltdown for the ages and then calling Marchand for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Marchand certainly played like his hair was on fire after that, flying all over the ice on his next several shifts. He set up a David Pastrnak goal on one of them, then scored a goal of his own when he angrily slapped a shot just under the crossbar on the power play.
Marchand continued to look like a man possessed right out of the gate Saturday in San Jose. Just 1:03 into the game, he turned three Sharks inside-out on a nearly end-to-end rush before flipping a backhander past James Reimer to give Boston an early 1-0 lead.
In the second period, he set up Pastrnak on the power play, patiently waiting for Pastrnak to move into an open passing lane. In the third, he helped set up Pastrnak’s second goal of the night, leading the rush and combining with Pastrnak to win a battle down low before beginning a tic-tac-toe passing sequence from himself to Patrice Bergeron to Pastrnak.
That missed call on Thursday definitely added some fuel to Marchand’s fire, but the reality is that it had begun burning hotter even before that. Marchand said last Saturday, after a two-point performance against Buffalo, that he was starting to feel more like himself and getting back into old routines, including more bike-riding to help with conditioning.
“Definitely getting better, feeling better every game,” Marchand said then. “It’s a game of confidence, and I think I’m starting to find it much more now. Last few games, ever since the [Christmas] break, I’ve felt much more comfortable with the puck, making plays and trying more. Condition-wise, it’s slow, it’s tough when you’re limited to what I could do still. I couldn’t really bike or anything off the ice, so I had to kind of wait, but I’m kind of back on that program now. So, I feel better every game that goes by.”
This last week has certainly backed that up. There was never any real concern about Marchand’s 5-on-5 production and all-around game coming back. His opponents were probably hoping their return would be delayed a little longer, though.
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