SUNRISE, Fla. — Two-time NHL All-Star selection Brad Marchand sure made himself at home in Florida.
Now he’s a two-time Stanley Cup champion.
Getting the veteran at the trade deadline in early March from the Boston Bruins for what ended up being a single first-round draft pick turned out to be a genius move by the Florida Panthers after he scored six often timely goals against the Edmonton Oilers in the title series over the past two weeks while providing vocal and physical leadership every shift.
It culminated with a home win in Game 6 on Tuesday night that left him grinning on the ice with the rest of his teammates.
“Everything has to line up perfectly,” Marchand said. “My situation’s a perfect example of that. Like, I shouldn’t have been here. But it worked out, and I’m enjoying the hell out of it.”
The 37-year-old winger had wondered if he’d be returning to his roots as a fourth-liner; instead, he had a major impact on the third line alongside Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen, a pair of young players from Finland.
Sam Bennett’s 15 goals were the most in this NHL postseason and led to the 28-year-old Florida forward receiving the Conn Smythe Trophy as MVP of the playoffs, but he gave credit where it was due.
“I truly don’t think we win a Stanley Cup without him,” Bennett said of Marchand. “His leadership, his will to win, it’s inspiring. I was telling him before every game, ‘We’re going to follow you.’ And we did. He was a dog every night.”
Marchand hoisted the Stanley Cup again 14 years after winning it with the Bruins, who beat the Vancouver Canucks in the 2011 Stanley Cup Final that went seven games. Among his signature moments this time, the Nova Scotia native scored two highlight-reel goals in Game 5 at Edmonton to put the Panthers ahead in a heavyweight title series.
“He’s been amazing for us all playoffs,” Florida first-liner Matthew Tkachuk said. “He seems to keep finding another gear. The more important the game, the better he is.”
Marchand said he felt at home with his new team.
“We just had that fire. We knew we had something special,” he said. “It’s such an incredible culture and everyone that’s come in here, it’s like we’ve been here a lot longer than a few months. It’s a family. Guys love each other in this room. You buy into it immediately. Guys embrace you. It’s incredible.”
Trading for Marchand was an 11th-hour move. Panthers coach Paul Maurice was about to leave the team’s practice facility a half-hour before the deadline when general manager Bill Zito came out of his office with a question: “What about Brad Marchand?”
“If he had asked that a year and a half ago, I would’ve thought he was joking,” Maurice said. “But he’s been able to find these players that we didn’t think were possible, and he’s been able to get these deals done. When he fired that out, I think there was a bit of a pause, his face was serious, everybody nodded, and that’s it.”
Marchand for what turned out to be a first-round pick seems like a steal, even if he departs as a free agent this summer. He turned out to be an ideal fit and was a big reason the Panthers are back-to-back champions. And, conversely, why the Oilers were left disappointed in the title series for the second year in a row as a team from Marchand’s native Canada still hasn’t hoisted the Stanley Cup since the Montreal Canadiens won it for a record-extending 24th time in 1993.
“He just happened to be the perfect style of player to take that line to a completely different level, and that’s where our need was,” Maurice said. “What Bill has always done here, in my experience, he’s identified the need and filled the hole.”
On the ice, Marchand was a breath of fresh air and maybe the final piece of the puzzle. He also brought his trademark mouth to the equation, always chatting guys up and filling the void for noise when necessary.
“With Brad, the whole room knows, so there’s no secrets of what he is as a player, as a competitor,” Zito said. “Getting to know him a little bit more as a human, he’s more special than I could have imagined on that front as a teammate and as a character human. From that standpoint, it was like frosting on the cake.”
Will he be back in South Florida next season?
“We’ll see what happens here soon,” Marchand said before heading off to celebrate.
Panthers party hard
The Stanley Cup is a little banged up, thanks to the Panthers’ celebration, with the bowl of hockey’s most famous trophy cracked and its bottom dented.
Not for the first time, though, and likely not the last.
Following decades of tradition, the Panthers partied with the traveling trophy into the wee hours after Tuesday night’s victory and kept the revelry going in Fort Lauderdale well into Wednesday afternoon.
A spokesperson for the Hockey Hall of Fame said the keepers of the Stanley Cup are taking the appropriate steps and plan to have it repaired in time for Sunday’s celebration parade. Made of silver and a nickel alloy, the 37-pound prize is relatively malleable.
Damage is nothing new for the 131-year-old silver chalice that has been submerged in pools and the Atlantic Ocean and mishandled by players, coaches and staff for more than a century. Just this decade alone, the Tampa Bay Lightning dropped it during their boat parade in 2021 and the Colorado Avalanche dented it on the ice the night they won the following year.