They say that the best revenge is a life well-lived, and that’s definitely the case with Brad Marchand right now.
It’s not even “revenge”, of course, as the Bruins truthfully did their captain a solid by sending him to the contending Florida Panthers team where he wanted to go, and spared him the final, futile month of playing out the string with a Boston club destined for the NHL Draft lottery. On the plus side, the Bruins are pretty much a lock at this point to collect the conditional first-round pick in exchange for Marchand that would happen if a) the Panthers played two rounds of playoffs and b) Marchand played in 50 percent of Florida’s playoff games.
After a steady start where he was finding his footing on an established, successful Panthers group, Marchand seems to be fully absorbed into the Florida way of doing things while bringing his own personality to a feisty, intimidating group that includes Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Bennett among others.
Panthers players have taken to a new tradition of firing the rubber rats, the ones fans toss on the ice after a Florida playoff win, at Marchand postgame on their way off the ice to great comic effect.
New Panthers postgame win tradition in Florida: shooting rats at bRAT Marchand 🤣🐀 pic.twitter.com/Z9quUBU4aS
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) April 29, 2025
It's given Bruins fans a reason to watch the Stanley Cup playoffs with the Black and Gold sitting this one out, and maybe even a cause to cheer for the individual player, like when a familiar No. 63 scored the overtime game-winner to beat the Maple Leafs once again.
THE RAT BRAD MARCHAND LIVES RENT FREE IN THE MAPLE LEAFS FRANCHISE
— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) May 10, 2025
PANTHERS WIN IN OT @spittinchiclets
pic.twitter.com/xYuraglIAl
“He’s a competitor,” said Brandon Carlo, who is going up against Marchand in this series after he was also traded to the Maple Leafs at the deadline. “Once he gets out onto the ice, there’s no really saying what he’s going to do besides compete as hard as he can.”
This big second-round postseason moment caused a familiar Marchand adversary to comically lose his mind once again in humbling defeat.
“Anyone but him.”
— Spittin' Chiclets (@spittinchiclets) May 10, 2025
- @BizNasty2point0 pic.twitter.com/9s4aFXyCdy
The 37-year-old is playing a third-line role with the deep Panthers team, but he’s also showing he’s still got plenty of game left after Marchand and the Bruins couldn’t find common ground on a three-year contract extension prior to him getting moved to Florida. Marchand is tied for the team lead in playoff points (eight points on two goals and six assists) while also being tied for the team lead in plus/minus and has blended well into the Panthers Way, just as everybody thought he would at the time of the deal.
“Coming in, everybody embraced me and welcomed me and I feel like I’ve built some really, really good friendships already, in a very short period of time,” said Marchand.
With unrestricted free agency awaiting him right after the playoffs, Marchand is definitely playing his way into the $7 million per season price tag that the Bruins balked at while now desperately seeking a couple of top-6 wingers to bring offense to the B’s next season.
Now the Bruins might have to start worrying that Marchand will host a Stanley Cup party in Boston this summer that will be uncomfortably similar to Bruce Cassidy bringing the Cup to Cape Cod a couple of years ago when the Vegas Golden Knights captured the Cup after his unceremonious dismissal from the Bruins. It’s things like that continuing to put pressure on the current Bruins front office to turn things around after watching a lot of quality people exit the organization over the last few years.
ONE TIMERS
•Interesting timing for the Boston Bruins organization to sign 32-year-old Patrick Brown to a two-way, one-year NHL contract for next season during the second round of the AHL playoffs. The signing came after a couple poor efforts on Providence home ice and preceded a couple of strong road efforts that pushed the Charlotte Checkers to a fifth game that the P-Bruins eventually lost on Sunday afternoon.
Fellow veteran AHLer Vinni Lettieri scored a pair of goals to provide all the offense for the P-Bruins in the elimination game loss while Matt Poitras collected an assist and finished with two goals and four points in eight AHL playoff games.
The rock-solid Brown serves as the captain for the Providence Bruins and has been a top line center at the AHL level where he produced 17 goals and 46 points in 56 games this season, but more importantly is the exact type of experienced, veteran professional leader that an organization wants youngers learning the ropes from as they come up through the minor league development system.
The former Boston College standout didn’t really have the skating speed to consistently stick at the NHL level, but he’s still logged 164 NHL games over parts of 10 seasons because of everything else he brings to the table.
Brown is good as bottom-6 insurance for the NHL club as he’s done a really nice job playing a gritty, smart energy forward game in 26 games for Boston over the last two seasons and will undoubtedly serve in that exact same role again next season as somebody that that they are comfortable with in all the details that he brings to the table.
•While there are clearly some high-profile names like Rick Tocchet being speculated on for the vacant Bruins head coaching position, there are also some under-the-radar names that might end up being the favorites for a couple of different reasons. Current Dallas Stars assistant coach and former Bruce Cassidy assistant Misha Donskov is one highly regarded candidate, who was on the 4 Nations staff for Team Canada (the only NHL assistant on that Team Canada staff) alongside Bruins GM Don Sweeney, giving him a connection to the Black and Gold.
Another name to keep an eye on is Mitchell Love, an assistant coach with the Washington Capitals for the last couple of seasons after successful head coaching stints in the WHL and AHL in his young coaching career.
While the more familiar names like Tocchet, or Mike Sullivan and Joel Quenneville before they were scooped up by other NHL teams, will get consideration for the Boston gig, there’s also some question as to whether the Bruins are willing to fork over the top NHL coaching salary that might go along with those established candidates. A coaching search could much more likely to end up with a fresh-faced head coach hungry for an opportunity that will be lower on the NHL head coaching pay scale, and also more willing to enter a situation where the general manager (Don Sweeney) hiring him is in the last year of his current contract with the organization.
It all begs the question whether the Bruins would be better off signing Sweeney to an extension now and securing the services of a general manager they have been happy with over the last decade, rather than enter the year with a prominent lame duck situation after that really didn’t go well with Jim Montgomery and Brad Marchand in that category a year ago.