It’s sometimes still difficult to believe Brad Marchand is now a member of the Florida Panthers.
But the reality hits especially hard for Bruins diehards with No. 63 skating in the Stanley Cup Final and scoring double-overtime game-winning goals for the defending champ Panthers as he did in a highly entertaining Game 2 win over the Oilers in Edmonton on Friday night.
Big Game Player. Always has been, always will be 🚨 pic.twitter.com/P7pg3wwLxw
— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) June 7, 2025
It’s not exactly rooting for Ray Bourque to finally get his elusive Stanley Cup when he was with the Colorado Avalanche in 2001, but it feels like many in Boston have an additional reason to watch the Cup Final because Marchand is doing his postseason thing. It feels a little crazy to say it right now, but it might even develop into a Conn Smythe possibility for Marchand at this point as he’s second in the Panthers with seven goals, second on the team with 17 points and second on the team with a whopping plus-14 in 16:52 of ice time in the playoffs while teaming with Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen on a super-impactful third line for Florida.
The camera shots of Marchand’s mom celebrating his playoff heroics in the stands. The playful banter about eating Dairy Queen blizzards between periods of playoff games. Marchand making significant plays at the big moments like becoming the first player to score a shorthanded goal and an overtime game-winner in the same Stanley Cup Final game.
It’s also familiar for hockey fans in Boston.
Brad Marchand's mom was so excited after her son won it for the Panthers in Game 2 🥲 pic.twitter.com/caxvfJSN1S
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) June 7, 2025
The Nose Face Killah now has the most Stanley Cup Final goals (10) among active NHL players and the most Cup Final goals for a left winger going all the way back to the start of the expansion era in the league.
There are zero surprises here for Bruins fans that saw him do it in Boston for the last 15 years, a fact that still generates salty social media reactions from fans angry that a first-round pick is all they have to show for trading away one of their Black and Gold legends.
Florida Panthers legend Brad Marchand. pic.twitter.com/jV9zeCQKu5
— Michael Hurley (@michaelFhurley) June 7, 2025
The Stanley Cup Final has even been a time of reflection for No. 63 where he now admits that perhaps his emotions got the best of him in contract negotiations with the Bruins when a deal didn’t materialize as it always had in the past. Couple that with the added responsibility of being the team’s captain and of hearing legitimate trade rumors surrounding your name for the first time in your pro career, and the 36-year-old looks back on his final weeks in Boston as another teachable moment in a career where he’s had a slew of them.
"It was stressful in a lot of senses," said Marchand in a press conference prior to the start of the Stanley Cup Final. "Some of them were situations I wasn't in before. I wouldn't say I dealt with them great. The business side of it, I let it frustrate me, and then obviously our team wasn't having success as we expected. We were having a hard time getting back on track, and eventually we did, we thought we were climbing back into a playoff position, and we just fell apart.
There were different hurdles that continued to get frustrating and stressful throughout the year, but that's part of the game and you've got to find ways to deal with it. I wish I had done a better job at times, but it's something I can learn from."
The Bruins will have a 2027 first-round pick to show for trading their captain at the NHL trade deadline, and they did do him a major solid by moving him to the Florida team where he requested to go if he was going to be moved.
Marchand himself has admitted that he hasn’t made up his mind about his long-term future, and what remains beyond this Cup run where he’s clearly totally locked in right now. It seems to be a pretty safe bet that it won’t be a return to the Bruins, even as Marchand himself didn’t slam that door shut in the emotional first few days after he was dealt to the Panthers.
The 2011 Stanley Cup champ still plans on living in Boston when his NHL career is over even as he’s earning himself a three-year contract for whatever – and wherever -- he wants at this point.
“I have a family and we’ve built a life in Boston and we absolutely love it there. We will live there down the road,” said Marchand on the 32 Thoughts podcast with Elliotte Friedman when asked if getting traded was the best thing for him. “For hockey-wise? Absolutely, yeah at this point when I look at where I am and where I would have been if I didn’t get moved. At the end of the day, I’m a competitive person and there are things I wouldn’t have been able to do if I had stayed in Boston and retired there and everything. I’m in a position to play for a Cup and at the end of the day that’s why I play this game.
“I believe wholeheartedly that everything happens for a reason and that I was meant to be in [Florida] and everything that happened this year was meant to test me, to make me better and to make me learn to appreciate the opportunity right now and be grateful for it. I can’t say whether [the trade] was the best thing for me, but I know I’m grateful to be here [in Florida] and I know I loved every moment that I was in Boston. I was nervous as anything to move and to not really know what was expected, or what was coming…but I’ve loved every moment that I’ve been here too. So it was a win-win.”
He admitted that he has thought a little about his future and said “everything is on the table” when it comes to the possibility of playing in Canada once he hits unrestricted free agency a month from now. It’s hard to envision Boston being “on the table” as the Bruins seem to be moving on with David Pastrnak, Morgan Geekie, Hampus Lindholm and Charlie McAvoy taking the leadership reins of that hockey team, and it would be an odd situation if a former teammate in Marco Sturm is the new head coach with Marchand theoretically on the team.
Perhaps far better to live vicariously through No. 63 as he turns this spring’s Stanley Cup playoffs into his personal playground and reminds everybody just how good the future Hall of Famer can be when everything is on the line and it’s winning and losing time in a hockey game.