Brad Marchand would downplay it a bit afterward because that’s what NHL captains do when it comes to individual achievements, but there was no denying a weight was lifted when the left winger scored the 400th goal of his NHL career on Thursday night.
It was an important score that opened up Boston’s offense early in the game on a breakaway where Freddie Andersen made the initial save, but the puck caromed into the net off Marchand’s body as he went crashing into the crease.
Brad Marchand
— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) April 4, 2024
5th player in #NHLBruins history to score 400 goals pic.twitter.com/TC3jq9ZZQa
“It’s nice. Not one I ever thought I would get to, but hopefully they’ll be many more,” said Marchand. “Lately, trying not to think about it, but obviously it was kind of the elephant in the room. Nice to get it and not have to worry about it anymore.
“But it’s nice that we had a really good game to follow it up and a big road trip. It’s a good night. I probably won’t [reflect on it]. I try not to think about things that I’ve kind of done well while I’m still playing. There are much larger goals and hopefully there are plenty more, so I’ll reminisce at the end [of my career].”
The Little Ball of Hate celebrated by tossing the imaginary monkey off his back after snapping a 10-game goal-scoring drought with the goal, and then returned to the B’s bench with a big smile on his face.
Brad Marchand finally gets the monkey off his back. pic.twitter.com/S07qDsDvbJ
— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) April 4, 2024
It was both symbolic and indicative of the way things are going for the Black and Gold these days as they put together a strong 4-1 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes at PNC Arena.
And Marchand joining an exclusive club with Johnny Bucyk (545), Phil Esposito (459), Patrice Bergeron (427) and Rick Middleton (402) gave the Bruins something to rally around at the end of a long, hard regular season where patience for the start of the playoffs is beginning to be a challenge.
“It’s an amazing accomplishment to get 400 goals in this league,” said Jim Montgomery. “It speaks about longevity, it speaks about your ability to make a tremendous amount of plays over the course of your career. There’s a guy that has been doubted his whole life and all he keeps doing is putting out any doubts in anyone’s mind about how great an athlete he is and great a hockey player and Bruin he is.”
Certainly, it’s a good time for Marchand to show he’s ready for the looming playoff grind, just as it’s the same for the hockey team he leads with just five games to go in the regular season. He and Charlie Coyle put it on display while teaming for the shorthanded game-winner in the road win on Tuesday night over Nashville, and it was there again Thursday against a Carolina team among the favorites in the Eastern Conference.
From a broader perspective, the Bruins have also shown that they are playoff-ready after their coach pronounced them unready for the postseason at the start of the six-game road trip they just concluded with a 4-2-0 record facing playoff teams in the Panthers, Lightning, Capitals, Predators and Hurricanes after a disappointing trip opening loss to the Flyers in Philly.
It was after that Flyers loss, where they crumbled in the third period, that Montgomery strongly challenged his team with his words assessing the group, and with screaming F-bombs on the ice that stumbling through practice wasn’t good enough.
“As much as the team, it’s about the individuals. Who is ready to handle those late [game] moments? Checking has elevated in the league,” said Montgomery, back on March 25 prior to the Florida game when he stopped a drill at practice, told his team to “wake the [expletive] up and then launched into an unmistakably punitive conditioning skate. “The league usually goes up a level after the All-Star break and I’ve found that it’s gone up another level here in the last two games. Do we lose our patience and start to give up odd-man rushes, or do we continue to fight and have second and third efforts playing the right way and get a greasy goal to win a hockey game?
“That’s what I’m looking for in the Florida game, in the Tampa game and we have two days off then we have a team in Washington that’s like minus-30 in goal differential, but they win the games that they’re in. All three games are going to test us. Who are the guys that are going to continue to manage the game, manage the puck, protect the puck. Who is going to win battles and who is going to be first on pucks? We saw some guys that didn’t want to be first on pucks in that last game [against Philly]. I don’t think our team is ready for the playoffs yet. We need to continue to get tested and we’re going to get tested.”
All that seems to have worked as the Bruins defense allowed just 11 goals in six games during the road trip and ended things with a flourish allowing just one goal to Nashville and Carolina in a strong finish. There were times earlier this season when the B’s put up similar defensive numbers, but those were driven more by stellar play from their goalies rather than the team collectively digging in. Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman both played well during the road trip in another encouraging development, but it was much more about the team playing 200-foot hockey in front of them during this recent stretch.
The Bruins will obviously need to maintain the keen attention to detail and strong two-way hockey with the playoffs awaiting in a couple of weeks, but Montgomery sounded more like a coach that has transported the team to where they needed to be after Thursday night’s win over Carolina.
In other words, it sounds like they have come out of the trip ready for the playoffs.
“I think the biggest growth we’ve seen is how confident we are in the third periods of games now. It’s nice to see in a 0-0 game that we win 3-0 and we did it looking like a confident team,” said Montgomery, when asked by NESN about the successful road trip postgame that started on a sour note in Philly. “We had another 3-0 lead against another elite team [Nashville], and we pushed the lead to 4-1 [in the third period], and I didn’t think we really gave up much.
“I thought our D-corps was excellent, they played a great game [against Carolina] and the forwards were very good as well.”
It all adds up to Boston’s best players rounding their game into form while Montgomery’s colorful cajoling at practice has Boston much more ready for the playoffs than they were even a week ago. Boston is an undeniably good place after a successful six-game road trip against quality opponents following a necessary Philly wakeup call, and now it’s just a matter of riding that momentum into a Stanley Cup playoff journey that’s now just around the corner.
