In defiance of Father Time and recovery timelines, Brad Marchand adds another chapter to his legacy in Boston with bombastic debut

Brad Marchand was coy when asked about his expectations for Thursday, in what stood as his first taste of NHL action since May 14.

Of course, it’d be one thing if Marchand was staring at an uphill climb brought upon by the slow decay of time — his 34-year-old body already weathered by over 900 games of NHL action between the regular season and the toll that comes with playoff battles.

But given the task in front of him, Marchand was looking at a mountain instead of a molehill when it came to the hurdle standing between him and his 14th season up in the NHL ranks.

Marchand’s early absence this season wasn’t a byproduct of maintenance work over the summer, but rather an extensive procedure on both of his hips - with a full labral repair expected to put him on the shelf for six months. 

Such a surgery, especially for an older NHLer, isn’t exactly a death knell in the same vein as, say, an Achillies tear for an aging NBA star. But given the extensive rehab that he had to endure — including early on-ice sessions in which Marchand himself said that he needed to learn how to skate all over again — it was expected for there to be plenty of rust present for his season debut against the Red Wings. 

Oh, and Marchand was also close to five weeks ahead of schedule with his rehab — tearing up the timeline regarding a projected return around Thanksgiving as soon as he received the green light from the medical staff.

Still, given his age, the severity of his offseason surgery and his own envelope-pushing recovery, Marchand tried to temper some of the supposition brewing about his potential impact back out on the ice. 

“Keeping shifts short, not trying to do too much or be too fancy. Just gonna have to chip a lot of pucks in, chip a lot of pucks out and sit there for five or 10 seconds at a time and get off,” Marchand said of his goals … while delivering a smirk.

Of course, Marchand wasn’t curtailing his shifts and just dumping pucks in once the game actually commenced on Thursday night at TD Garden. For a time, Marchand did look like a player still trying to get his legs under him — with the veteran winger noting that a few skittering pucks that bounced off his skates would have been corralled on most nights. 

For a time, at least. 

"You could tell he was a little rusty in the beginning,” Jim Montgomery said of Marchand. “He wasn't handling pucks cleanly. And boy, the last 30 minutes, that was special.”

Given all that we’ve seen No. 63 perform out on the ice over his previous 13 years in Boston, there isn’t a whole lot that comes as a surprise whenever the divisive forward hops over the boards. 

Be it his flair for the dramatics, propensity to bug the bejesus out of opponents and the internal drive that transformed him from fourth-line pest to all-world superstar, Marchand has a habit of proving doubters wrong — and rewriting the script when it comes to his game and career.

As such, it was only fitting that Marchand — a month ahead of schedule in his return from major hip surgery — didn’t look like himself in his return to the ice Thursday. 

Rather, in defiance of all conventional thinking, it looked as though he turned back the clock. 

By the time the dust had settled on Boston’s eventual 5-1 win over the Red Wings, Marchand — par for the course — had left his fingerprints all over the B’s fourth straight victory. 

It took Marchand just 4:27 of ice time to record his first point — a secondary helper on a Charlie Coyle goal after winning a pair of board battles along the half wall — before later adding a pair of tallies on the power play.

The tangible production is welcome, especially on a hot-and-cold man advantage that desperately missed his quick wrister and crisp seam feeds. But beyond the stat sheet, Marchand’s ability to corral pucks and slip past opposing skaters now gives Boston an O-zone cheat code, capable of extending possessions on a whim with a quick dangle or deke.

“It's amazing how he comes up with pucks,” Montgomery said of Marchand. “Like the pucks in between three bodies and he's like a little Tasmanian Devil — he's twirling all around. The puck just seems to follow him. It’s amazing. He tracks it. He fights for it. He’ll bite your leg off for it. "That's why you love him."

It’s a testament to Marchand’s overall game and impact in the B’s room that a player with 798 points on his resume isn’t valued by his coach or his teammates off of just simple goals and assists. As effective as Marchand is at both even strength and on the man advantage, it’s often the tone he sets both on and off the ice that tends to get brought up the most when others are asked about his greatest strength. 

“Just his dogged determination every day he's on the ice,” Montgomery said. “I've never seen a player stand on top of pucks and hound pucks like he does. Probably when you see him and Bergeron together out there, the whole practice intensity level goes to another level. It's kind of like the days where we're getting maintenance days to Bergy, like practices aren't the same. I've said it many times, it makes my job very easy when you have leaders like that that are not only your best players, but your hardest workers.”

Of course, putting together a performance like he did on Thursday more than a month before his expected return stands as a concrete way for Marchand to validate his standing as a lead-by-example, emotional conduit for a team that already has plenty of motivation in place. 

"Right away, as soon as it came out that I was going to have the surgery, they told me it was gonna be kind of the end of November. I was like, 'it's not gonna be the end of November," Marchand said with a smile.

Even with Thursday’s impressive debut, even a player like Marchand knows his limits. As much as he’d likely protest, Marchand won’t play on Friday night in Columbus, with Boston opting to keep him off back-to-back slates until they see how he responds from a strenuous workload. 

But with David Krejci currently sidelined with an upper-body injury (no timeline set yet for his return), the Bruins are going to need Marchand to keep up this same level of play — both in the short-term, and especially once the calendar flips to May and June and Boston’s full lineup is (hopefully) healthy. 

The good news for Boston? Marchand believes he has a whole lot more to offer than what he put forth on Thursday night. 

That should thrill the Bruins — and terrify the rest of the league. 

“I could have played terribly and still be happy. But definitely room for improvement,” Marchand said. “Not my best game and still things I can improve upon and looking forward to doing that with the group."