Brad Marchand’s inaugural season as the Boston Bruins’ captain has admittedly had its challenges.
At first, he had trouble finding his own voice while following in the footsteps of two leaders who were widely acknowledged to be top-flight. And on the ice, he finished the season in a pretty big goal drought with just two goals in his final 16 games.
But Marchand knows as well as anyone that when the Bruins host the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday (8 p.m.) at TD Garden for Game 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs, the regular season is a distant memory. It is like a second opening night, with hope springing eternal.
“The worst thing you can possibly do is go into the playoffs thinking that anything you did in the season matters,” said Marchand.
He was speaking in a general sense, but he could have just as easily been speaking for himself. He experienced a similar personal power outage last season, scoring just one goal in the last 17 regular-season games. But in the playoff series against the Florida Panthers that ultimately ended in bitter disappointment, he had 4-6-10 totals in the seven games.
Yes, the lasting memory may be of him getting stoned by Sergei Bobrovsky in the waning seconds of regulation of Game 5, but he was able to be an impactful player in the series.
Whether he can turn it around again remains to be seen. And this year is a different animal with him as the leader of the team. He said it’s been a learning experience taking care of the responsibilities of wearing the “C” while also trying to maintain the level of play that has made him one of the top left wings in the game.
“I was up and down. I thought there were times when I was doing well and times when I thought I could be better,” said Marchand, who finished with 29-38-67 totals. “So there are definitely things I can improve upon and work on over the summer, and even down the stretch in the playoffs there are some areas I’ve identified that I’d like to be better at. It was a great learning experience, a great opportunity so far and I think a good first year. But it’s not over yet. So hopefully there’s still room to improve through the season and the playoff time.
“There’s always room for growth. I watched (Patrice Bergeron and Zdeno Chara) continue to grow until the day that they were done. You’re never at the peak until it’s all over. I’m looking forward to growing.”
Did the responsibilities of the captaincy weigh on him down the stretch?
“I don’t know. I think at different points throughout the year they did. But I think at points I was just overthinking it as well. It’s just how it goes,” said Marchand, who also had a couple of milestones with his 1,000th game and 400th goal.
While acknowledging the growing pains, GM Don Sweeney gave Marchand’s first year as captain high marks.
“We knew there’d be some challenges and probably some ups and downs as it relates to that, just because of the pride he had in his own performance level and also learning from two previous captains that shouldered that load very well while also being elite players,” said Sweeney. “So here comes the challenge for Brad being in that situation for the very first time in his life, albeit being a part of our leadership group for a number of years. And there are some ups and downs associated with that.
“But he handled things coming through the door every day with the absolute right attitude, regardless of whether or not he accomplished some things individually he wanted to accomplish.”
From a team perspective, Marchand said there were some hard lessons learned from last year when the B’s won a record 65 games and flamed out in the first round.
“Looking back, we definitely looked at going on a long run and preparing for a long run instead of just looking day-to-day. It’s definitely a lesson we can learn and build upon,” said Marchand.
And if there’s one team that can get the B’s — and especially Marchand — to live in the moment, it’s the Leafs. Marchand grew up in Nova Scotia loving the Leafs — no surprise, Darcy Tucker was one of his favorites — and he’s been at the center of the rivalry that’s been burning for the last decade plus, including this season. The Leafs were angered by what they thought was a dirty play by Marchand that injured Timothy Liljegren (the NHL did not agree with the Leafs’ assessment). Marchand scored an emotional overtime winner in Toronto. And he was on the receiving end of a brutal crosscheck to the chops from Jake McCabe.
“The Leafs are probably the most popular franchise in the NHL and have probably the largest fan base. You see the excitement all throughout Canada when they’re playing in the playoffs and it makes it a lot of fun to play them,” said Marchand. “I think just with the history we’ve had with them recently, they’re probably our biggest rival now over the last decade. They’ve probably surpassed Montreal and any other team with where our rivalry’s one just because we’ve both been so competitive with each other and had a few playoff series. It definitely brings the emotion and the intensity up for the fans. It’s a lot of fun to play. It’s always extremely competitive. You never know which way the series is going to go. But that’s what you want and what you love about hockey.”…
Sweeney said that there will be two more call-ups from Providence. He said Mason Lohrei would be one. Presumably, John Beecher would be the other but we’ll see who shows up to Friday’s practice…
It looks like Kevin Shattenkirk has earned a spot in the Game 1. He was on the left side of third pair with Andrew Peeke while the other pairs were Hampus Lindholm-Charlie McAvoy and Matt Grzelcyk-Brandon Carlo.