Brad Marchand is getting ready to play in his fourth Stanley Cup Final and his first as a member of the Florida Panthers.
And while the excitement is building, Marchand knows the beginning of the 2024-25 season was stressful while with the Boston Bruins.
A team with playoff aspirations year after year, the Bruins found themselves struggling and fired coach Jim Montgomery in November. Boston’s next few months were a roller coaster in the standings.
Couple that with Marchand and the Bruins unable to come to terms on a contract extension and it only led the more stress for the veteran.
“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. The business side of it, I let it frustrate me, and then obviously our team wasn’t having the success we expected,” Marchand told reporters on Tuesday. “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,” he continued. “There were different hurdles that continued to get frustrating and stressful throughout the year.”
By the March trade deadline, the Bruins decided to sell. They traded Charlie Coyle and Brandon Carlo before moving Marchand to Florida at the buzzer. And while Marchand admitted he wished he had dealt with things better throughout the season, he knows how special an opportunity he has in front of him.
“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,” Marchand said, via SportsNet’s Luke Fox. “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 won a Stanley Cup in 2011 with the Bruins and appeared in two other Finals (2013, 2019). He’s looking forward to an opportunity he knows some players don’t get to achieve, but knows the job is far from done.
“We haven’t accomplished anything yet,” Marchand said. “The toughest team we’re gonna face is coming up next. If you don’t do the job there, you didn’t win anything. We’re excited, but it’s just like any other round. There’s a huge job to do moving forward and we have to prepare for that now.”