The Florida chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers Association (PHWA) has named Florida Panthers forward Brad Marchand its nominee for the 2025-26 Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy.<\/p>\n
Since 1968, the Masterton Trophy has been awarded to the player who best exemplifies perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a huge honor anytime people put your name up for something and you\u2019re voted in for something like this,\u201d Marchand said of being the nominee. \u201cIt obviously means a lot just to see the hard work and perseverance be recognized\u2026 I feel honored and flattered. I just really appreciate it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the ever-growing grocery list of injuries in Sunrise, Marchand was a significant reason Florida stayed in the playoff race for as long as they did, even as he battled through his own injuries.<\/p>\n
“We came into it knowing that Matthew [Tkachuk] would be out, but we didn’t know that Aleksander Barkov would be out,\u201d Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said.\u201d And then through January 1, we’re a point out, and that was, for me, a great accomplishment. [Brad] was leading our team in scoring at that point and was just the big-goal and big-game guy. But he wasn’t healthy. He played a lot of nights here for us where he was not at 100%, but he pushed for as long as he could.”<\/p>\n
The 37-year-old was second on the Panthers with 27 goals and 54 points in 52 points before he was shut for the year due to a lingering lower-body injury in mid-March.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was tough because we had such high hopes coming into the year,\u201d Marchand said when asked of all the Panthers injuries this season. \u201cWe know we\u2019re an incredibly deep team. We were a contending team \u2014 we knew we belonged at the top of the league to compete for the playoffs and a Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDay one of camp a huge piece of our team (Aleksander Barkov) went down, then in summer Chucky (Matthew Tkachuk) and Nosey (Tomas Nosek) had some big surgeries,\u201d he continued. It just kind of slowly started to get harder and harder. And the team wanted to fight so hard to give those guys an opportunity to come back, to play, and to compete for another Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marchand\u2019s presence in the room and on the ice is invaluable to the Panthers, even in a lost season.\u00a0Yet, his biggest impact this season wasn\u2019t on the ice, nor was it with the Panthers. It was in his hometown, when a close friend needed it most.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In October, Marchand served as a guest hockey coach for the under-18 March and Mill Co. Hunters in Halifax, Nova Scotia, for his close friend JP MacCallum, whose 10-year-old daughter Selah died after a battle with cancer. That game served as a fundraiser for the MacCallum family.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been one of my best friends for a very, very long time \u2014 over 25 years. That was, and still is, a very heartwrenching situation and loss for everybody that knew Selah and loves the family,\u201d Marchand said. \u201cIt was a really tough time. One of the I think mentally toughest situations I\u2019ve ever gone through or seen people close to me go through. It\u2019s just not something that you can relate to in any type of way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just so grateful to the Panthers organization and everyone involved here [in Halifax]. Just kind of allowed me to go be there for the family and be able to support them and honor Selah. Not every team has that respect and would allow the players to do that. I was just grateful for it all. Those are just things that are such a bigger part of life than the game of hockey.\u201d<\/p>\n
All 32 local PHWA chapters select one player from the team they cover as its nominee for the Masterton. The 32 nominees will be narrowed down to three finalists.<\/p>\n
All five of Florida\u2019s PHWA members unanimously voted in Marchand as its nominee.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Florida chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers Association (PHWA) has named Florida Panthers forward Brad Marchand its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5102],"tags":[62,57,5141,5,4,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-547517","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida-panthers","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-panthers","10":"tag-floridapanthers","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-panthers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116369608656838870","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}