Fourteen years after helping the Bruins win the Stanley Cup as a 23-year-old rookie, Brad Marchand is a Stanley Cup champion for the second time. Much to the dismay of Boston fans, this second title did not come with the Bruins.
Instead, it was the Panthers, Boston’s biggest rival in recent years, that Marchand was celebrating with this time around. Florida finished off the Edmonton Oilers for the second year in a row Tuesday night with a dominant 5-1 win in Game 6.
Here are four thoughts on Marchand, the trade that sent him to Florida, and the Panthers’ chances of three-peating:
It cements his Hall of Fame status
Marchand was probably already a Hockey Hall of Famer before this spring, but this run has to erase any remaining doubt. He was simply terrific for the Panthers, a legitimate game-changer who consistently stepped up in big moments.
Marchand’s 10 goals this postseason were third on the Panthers, and his 20 points were sixth (that 20 points only ranked sixth is an incredible testament to Florida's depth, by the way). He scored both of Florida’s overtime winners during this run – in Game 3 of the second round against Toronto, and in Game 2 of the Cup Final. If it weren’t for Sam Bennett’s 15 playoff goals, or maybe Sam Reinhart’s four-goal Game 6, Marchand may very well have won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.
Marchand joined Mario Lemieux as just the second player in the last 50 years to score five or more goals in two different Stanley Cup Finals, and he became the first player ever to do it on two different teams. It is ultimately Marchand’s playoff resume that will have him on the fast track to the Hall of Fame. He is tied for 27th all-time in playoff scoring with 158 points. The only active players ahead of him are Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Nikita Kucherov.
One of my favorite stats I stumbled upon this postseason, and one that highlights how consistently Marchand steps up in the playoffs is this: He has averaged 0.87 points per game or better in eight straight postseasons now. Only seven other players have ever done that: Wayne Gretzky (14 straight from 1980-93), Peter Forsberg (11 from 1995-06), Jari Kurri (10 from 1981-90), Glenn Anderson (8 from 1981-88), Mark Messier (8 from 1983-90), Sergei Fedorov (8 from 1992-99) and Nathan MacKinnon (8 from 2018-present).
And in the regular season, Marchand should easily get to 1,000 career points next year, as he is currently at 980. He’s finished top-five in Hart Trophy voting twice, top-10 two other times, and been a First Team All-Star twice.
There’s a lot of revisionist history regarding the trade
Marchand will rightfully go down as one of the best trade deadline additions in NHL history. For some fans and media in Boston, that means it must have been one of the worst trades in NHL history from the Bruins’ perspective.
It doesn’t really work like that, though, because the latter take just willfully ignores a ton of important context. Marchand suffered an injury days before the March 7 trade deadline, and it was not yet clear when he would be able to return. That shrunk his market and affected the return.
The market shrunk further because the Bruins were willing to work with Marchand on where he wanted to go, even though he technically only had an eight-team no-trade list. Marchand wanted to stay East, and Florida was at the top of his list. Pretty much the entire Western Conference was out.
You can debate whether that was the right thing to do. It’s possible the Bruins could have gotten more if they were willing to trade Marchand somewhere he didn’t want to go, but that risks a different kind of backlash – the kind of backlash you get for not doing your captain and a franchise legend a solid.
You can also argue that if the Bruins were only going to get a conditional second-round pick (which did end up turning into a first-round pick, by the way), they should have just kept Marchand. That wasn’t going to happen without a contract extension in place, though. A team heading for a retool just couldn’t risk losing Marchand for nothing after the season.
Maybe they should have just paid Marchand what he wanted, then. Fair! But let’s remember something: there wasn’t a whole lot of support for that idea back in March. Marchand was looking for more than $7 million per year on a three-year deal. The Bruins were not willing to offer much more than his current salary of $6.125 million.
At the time, the overwhelming majority of fans I heard from – on social media, on the radio, in real life – thought Marchand was crazy to ask for that much money, and the Bruins would be crazy to give it to him. Don Sweeney and company apparently agreed, because they didn’t give it to him. And so, trading Marchand and at least getting something for him became the best of several less-than-ideal options.
He’ll get the money he wants this summer
Marchand bet on himself, and it paid off. He thought he was worth more than the Bruins were willing to pay him, he believed he would get more on the open market, and he’s going to be right. He made sure of that with his playoff performance.
There have been reports that there are now teams that could be willing to offer Marchand $8 million or more on a three- or four-year deal. What remains unclear is whether any of them will be true Cup contenders, and whether that will even matter.
Marchand has two Cups now. He’s going to be a Hall of Famer. His last contract turned into one of the most team-friendly deals in the league before it even began, as Marchand signed it way back in 2016, a year before getting to free agency and right before his big breakout season. If he just wants to chase the biggest payday now, who could blame him? Or if he wants to take a discount to stay in South Florida and chase another Cup, well, you couldn’t fault him for that either.
That still doesn’t mean the Bruins were wrong to not extend themselves for Marchand, by the way. Their situation is not the same as another team’s. Whether it would be wise for them to spend that kind of money on any player in his late 30s – even someone whose number will someday hang in the TD Garden rafters – as they enter a retool is very much debatable.
Could the Panthers three-peat?
The Panthers, of course, would love to keep Marchand. Whether they’ll be able to is a different story. They are projected to have $19 million in cap space this summer, but they also have Sam Bennett and Aaron Ekblad as major pieces who are set to hit unrestricted free agency if they’re not signed before July 1.
Florida definitely can’t keep all three. With how well they all played this spring, and what each could be in line to make on the open market, they might only be able to keep one. If we had to guess, they’ll probably prioritize Bennett.
Even if they do lose two of those guys, though, the Panthers should still be very good next year. It’s not crazy to talk about a three-peat. So many of their core players are still smack in the middle of their primes – Aleksander Barkov (29), Matthew Tkachuk (27), Sam Reinhart (29), Carter Verhaeghe (29), Anton Lundell (23), Eetu Luostarinen (26), Seth Jones (30), Gustav Forsling (29). Bennett is 28 and Ekblad 29.
No NHL team has won three straight Cups since the New York Islanders won four in a row from 1980-83. No team has been to four straight Finals since then, either, and the Panthers would be looking to do that as well.
Obviously, it is incredibly difficult to do. To play this deep into the spring year after year after year has to take a toll eventually… right? That’s what the rest of the NHL will be hoping. Personally, I think I’ve learned a lesson about betting against these Panthers.