BRIGHTON – After a summer filled with wall-to-wall Jeremy Swayman negotiations after a busy July 1 open to NHL free agency, Brad Marchand changed the Boston Bruins preseason discussion with an eventful 20-minute chat on the opening day of Bruins captain’s practice at Warrior Ice Arena.
First, there was the revelation that the 36-year-old captain underwent three surgeries this summer to repair a torn tendon in his left elbow along with groin and sports hernia operations as well. Marchand played through the torn elbow tendon last season, and it sounded like the other issues didn’t heal after given a bit of rest time this summer.
The summer surgeries kept Marchand from most of his usual offseason workout routine and he’s only been on the ice for the last couple of weeks ahead of skating with a big group of Bruins players on Tuesday morning. He couldn’t guarantee he’d be a full participant at the start of training camp in a couple of weeks and instead, it sounds like he’ll be treating camp as a means to build up his conditioning for the regular season as he works back to being 100 percent.
“There’s a lot of work to be done,” said Marchand. “The summer I had is not typical of what I’m used to. It might take until the season. It might take a little bit into the season. I’ll treat the next two months like a summer and train and skate in the way I normally would in the summer.
“The biggest thing is getting conditioning back up to speed. I think that’s the biggest thing. My strength is kind of there already. But power and conditioning is where I need to focus to get back to where I need to be.”
Once Marchand gets back up to full speed, it’s going to be about finding a