Marchand grateful for Stanley Cup chance with Panthers after ‘stressful' season originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

Brad Marchand is now four wins away from his second Stanley Cup title, something that has eluded him for more than a decade.

He has made a seamless transition to the Panthers lineup after being sent to Florida on trade deadline day in March following 16 seasons with the Boston Bruins.

The veteran forward has played his role on the third line alongside Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen almost flawlessly. Marchand has tallied 14 points in 17 playoff games for the Panthers so far. The only player with more postseason points than Marchand since 2011 is Nikita Kucherov.

But the 2024-25 campaign hasn’t been easy for the 37-year-old left wing. The first five months of the season with the Bruins were filled with challenges.

For the first time in nearly a decade, the B’s were not a playoff-caliber team. Marchand is also in the final year of his contract, and he wasn’t able to work out an extension with the Bruins before the trade deadline.

“It was stressful in a lot of senses, just because some of them were situations I really hadn’t been in before, and I wouldn’t say I dealt with them great,” Marchand told reporters at Stanley Cup Final media day in Edmonton on Tuesday, per Sportsnet.

“The business side of it, I let it frustrate me, and then obviously our team wasn’t having the success we expected. And we were having a hard time getting back on track.

“Eventually we did, and we thought we were climbing back into a playoff position, and then we kind of 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. Like I said, I wish I had done a better job at times, but something I can learn from.”

Marchand won the Stanley Cup with the Bruins in 2011 — his first full season as an NHL player. He played on a lot of other great Bruins teams, including two that reached the Cup Final in 2013 and 2019, but Boston lost both series.

Walter Tychnowicz-Imagn Images

Now that he’s back in the Cup Final for the fourth time — with Game 1 against the Edmonton Oilers set for Wednesday — he’s making sure he appreciates the opportunity in front of him, because you never know if it will ever come again.

“With the things that went on this year and how I ended up here — just so many things can happen that you don’t expect, and you never know when you’re going to have another opportunity like this,” Marchand told reporters at media day Tuesday, including Sportsnet’s Luke Fox.

“I’m just so grateful to be part of a group like this. And even if you take the finals out of it, just to be part of the group. It’s been an incredible experience, and one that I was little worried about, and didn’t know how I was going to come into the team, if I was going to be able to gel with everyone. I’m extremely grateful for it — and really, really excited about it.”

Marchand’s future is unknown. He is able to hit free agency for the first time in his career this summer. Overall, it’s a fairly weak free agent class, and Marchand could be one of the top players available if he hits the open market.

Marchand might not be a first-line player anymore, but this playoff run with the Panthers has proven that he still makes a tremendous impact on winning at the most important time of the year. He can score, defend, contribute to special teams, and his leadership is fantastic.

Marchand is, in many ways, the ideal final piece for a team that’s close to winning a championship and just needs a little more depth and experience.