Of course, at the same time, I never thought I’d see Zdeno Chara in a Capitals sweater. Never thought I’d see Tim Thomas wear an entire garage sale of gear in 2014. Never thought I’d see the Blues laying the egg they did in a Game 7 loss in 2019. Even beyond the Bruins, I can also confidently say that I never envisioned Tom Brady wearing Tampa Bay red, nor did I see Bill Belichick in Carolina blue. And I definitely never saw the Taco Bell quesadilla hitting $8. (It’s just tortilla, cheese, meat, and sauce. It simply cannot be that expensive.)
We have all been surprised, disappointed, hungry, and broke too many times to count. And as we move further and further away from the golden era of Boston sports, we have all been around long enough to know that it’ll only continue.
But when it comes to the breakup between Marchand and the Bruins, it’s never been clearer that a split was the right move for both sides.
See, for the Bruins, Marchand unintentionally became a crutch.
So long as Marchand was in town, the Bruins were going to operate with the notion that they “gotta win one more for Brad.” Just like they had to win one more for Zdeno, one more for Patrice, and one more for David. It led to what was a near decade-long bloodletting of draft picks, and prioritizing drafting players (with the draft picks they did keep, anyway) who could ‘fit in’ at the bottom of their roster. After all, the top of the Black and Gold roster was set so long as it had Patrice, Brad, David, and Zdeno. By 2022, Zdeno called it quits (and as an Islander), and Patrice and David followed his lead as Bruins in 2023.
That left Marchand, once the out of control rookie who climbed his way up the ladder on a Cup winner, as the club’s lone active link to what the team accomplished in 2011. It was an important time and point in history for the Bruins, of course. Hell, it’s my generation’s only genuine comparable and version of what our parents and grandparents told us about the 1970s and how Bobby Orr and friends ran this town. But as that banner gets older and loses some of its gold shimmer year after year, it too has become more of a crutch than anything else.
For all the good that 2011 brought, the Bruins’ constant chase of recapturing everything that happened back then was becoming a borderline obsession. From wanting to keep that culture (understandable) to thinking it was still the only way to build a team some decade and change later, it was their natural default. And how could you argue it? It brought them a championship! It was their trump card.
Not just for the fans and media, but also for the players. To make Marchand’s dreams of “one more” come true, they’d need him to take less money. Maybe even go year to year. Such strategies failed to work for the other guys, but it would definitely work with him. He just had to trust them. 2011, you know!
And as the supporting cast got weaker, and as the Bruins continued to rob themselves of much-needed futures in their cupboard, it was setting up the Bruins to throw more good money after bad until Marchand’s body failed him.
Those cracks were forming in Marchand’s final year in town, too.
While Marchand’s energy, enthusiasm, and dedication to captaining the Bruins to victories every night was still there (and arguably stronger than ever), it was clear that there was simply too much on his shoulders. And help was not on the way.
So long as Marchand was still with the Bruins, he was going to be their second-best player. And still in possession of that takeover ability, it was entirely possible that Marchand’s presence would’ve been enough for the Bruins to win their way out of the pick that landed James Hagens in Boston. That was something that the Bruins, in the tank for the first time in almost 20 years, could not afford.
The Bruins needed to ditch 2011 and for the first time under Don Sweeney’s watch, they needed to embrace losing. If only for just a few months.
That’s not something in Marchand’s DNA.
Oct 21, 2025; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Florida Panthers left wing Brad Marchand (63) skates against the Boston Bruins during the first period at TD Garden. (Winslow Townson/Imagn Images)
Florida, meanwhile, presented Marchand with the perfect opportunity at this stage of his career, and something the Bruins failed to sustainably build around him and his fellow one-Cup Boston legends during that pursuit of “one more.”
With the Panthers, and for the first time in almost a decade, Marchand could simply throw the pucks out there and just play. Behind Barkov, Reinhart, Tkachuk, and Bennett on a healthy Panther depth chart up front, Marchand saw a vision that would allow him to excel as a matchup nightmare (and he did). He was getting matchups he couldn’t dare dream of as a Bruin in 2025 and beyond.
Other teams came calling on Marchand, and almost certainly had better offers on the table, but No. 63 knew what was available to him in Sunrise. That was true in March, and true in June, as the 37-year-old inked a six-year, $31.5 million deal to remain with the Panthers until he’s 43 years old. The years and favorable tax situation in Florida (allowing Marchand to maximize his earnings compared to just about anywhere else) were factors to Marchand, he later admitted.
Maybe this is all meaningless to you and it’s the trade itself that will always really bother you at your core. I’m with you in the sense that I would’ve preferred a stronger return than just a conditional first-round pick (Mackie Samoskevich, anyone?). But without the benefit of hindsight, we have to be honest.
If I asked you back on March 6th what you would want the Bruins to do with an injured and still-unextended Marchand, after watching 64 games of a clearly broken and at times noncompetitive Bruins team, what would you have said? Knowing his uncertainty, his growing surgery history, and the state of the Bruins?
Taking emotion out of it, the answer was clear. For all sides.
It was clear in March, clear in June, and clear on Tuesday night as Boston got to honor a key figure of their past without letting those feelings decide their future.
What the Bruins did following their decision to move on from Marchand is its own discussion. And if I were a betting man, I’d say the odds are that it won’t work its way to success that rivals Marchand’s with the Panthers. But that itself may be part of the plan for Sweeney and the Bruins. It’s entirely possible that the Bruins are not done losing in an effort to properly rebuild their organization.
Something that simply would not have been a feasible (or at the very least fair) ask with the club’s last link to 2011 still in town and looking for “one more.”