Marchand says 1st game vs. Bruins with Panthers in Boston should be 'weird'

Brad Marchand tries not to get too far ahead of himself. He tries not to think much beyond his next game. Which is why, normally, he might not know who is up next on the Florida Panthers' schedule, especially not a game a week away.

Except this one is no ordinary game. This one, Marchand knows is coming.

This one is in Boston.

"I've never been one to look ahead at games and schedule and stuff like that," Marchand told NHL.com by phone from Detroit, a week before the Panthers were set to play the Boston Bruins. "I think things that can make me nervous, I tend to avoid until they happen, just so I don't overthink them. I obviously have thought about it a little bit, but I think once we get there, we have three days before the game, so I think it'll kind of hit home a little bit more then."

It is not Marchand's first time back in Boston since the trade that shook up two franchises on March 7, at the 2025 NHL Trade Deadline, not even his first time at TD Garden. That happened a mere four days after the trade, when a still-stunned Marchand donned Panthers red in the arena he called home for his first 16 seasons in the NHL.

But he was injured and did not play in that game, a spectator only.

This time, he will play.

Marchand doesn't know how it will feel, how he will react, how they will react, when he takes the ice on Tuesday at TD Garden (7:30 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN360, TVAS). He got a taste of playing in Boston as a visitor during the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off, a Canadian playing in front of a pro-United States crowd on Causeway Street. Then, though, he was still the captain of the Bruins, a longtime fan favorite and beloved rat.

Now, he plays for the Panthers, the Bruins' hated rivals, with whom he won the Stanley Cup back in June.

Will he be nervous?

"Yeah, a little," Marchand admitted. "It's going to be weird. I think there's going to be a lot of different emotions, even playing in the 4 Nations for Canada was different. There's a mix. A mix of emotions being on the other side of it. There's a lot that goes with the situation I'm in now. So yeah, a mix of nerves, mix of emotions, happy and sad."

Over 16 seasons with the Bruins, Marchand transformed himself from a fourth-line disrupter whose fire often spilled over in unwelcome ways -- the suspensions, the licking incidents, the questionable hits -- into a member of the best line in hockey, a potential future Hall of Fame player, and a captain. He had 976 points (422 goals, 554 assists) in 1,090 games in Boston. He's since had nine more, four (two goals, two assists) in 10 games at the end of last season for Florida; six (three goals, three assists) in seven games this season.

"There will be a lot of different things I'm feeling at that time," Marchand continued. "Obviously I've had a very long time there and built a family and a home there and it's something that we miss. And as good as we have it here, obviously we've spent a lot more time there. It's just what we were used to and comfortable with and kind of thought that it would always be that way. So, yeah, there's a lot of emotions that go with it."

The small favor for Marchand is how much of the team has turned over in recent seasons, how little of the current roster he played with for an extended amount of time, but they will be there, still, in David Pastrnak, in Charlie McAvoy, in Jeremy Swayman, even in Sean Kuraly, who returned to Boston this season, in assistant coach Chris Kelly.

Marchand had thought that Boston would be it for him, the place he was drafted (No. 71, 2006), the place he won the Stanley Cup, the place he would live after he retired, the team he might one day work for in his post-playing days.

Then, that was all upended.

Heading into the 2024-25 season, Marchand believed he and the Bruins would have an easy contract negotiation, a simple conversation. He thought it would be done quickly, that the Bruins understood that he wanted term, that he wanted to play for as long as he could, that he was committed.

That wasn't how it went.

Then came the breakdown in communications, the silence and, eventually, the trade.

For the first time in his NHL career, Marchand was not a member of the Bruins. He was part of the Panthers, a swap that would see him storm through the Stanley Cup Playoffs, with 20 points (10 goals, 10 assists) in 23 games, helping anchor a line with Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen that their playoff opponents rarely had answers for. He made Dairy Queen into a Panthers thing, made himself a candidate for the Conn Smythe Trophy, which goes to the playoffs MVP.

Made Florida his home.

But none of that, the divorce, the Stanley Cup, the relocation for the next six years, after signing a stunning six-year, $31.5 million contract with the Panthers, lessened his impact on the Bruins, on Boston, on the city he had called home since he was 21 years old.

"I think Boston, in general, as fans, as players, the ownership down, it was always about kind of being that blue-collar, hard worker," Marchand said. "That's what we heard a lot about, what our culture was based on, competing and working hard.

"That's really what I tried to do and whether I did it always in the right way or sometimes the wrong way, just because I cared and wanted to win and wanted to try and push myself and people around me to be better. I learned that from the guys that led me and I followed and I just tried to do the same thing."

While it was clear that those heady days of the 2010s Bruins, when they went to the Stanley Cup Final three times and won the Cup in 2011, were led by Zdeno Chara and Patrice Bergeron, Marchand brought his own gifts to the table, his own imprint.

"The work ethic for Brad was incredible," Bergeron said. "I think he would always bring people into the fight. I think he had a gift for bringing people together and if you're having a bad [stretch] or the team is not playing well, he's always the one that would create a spark and make us get back into the game."

Or, as Chicago Blackhawks captain Nick Foligno put it, "'Marshy' was the engine of the team, like he was the heartbeat in the sense of as he went, we went."

Foligno, who has been the captain of two NHL teams and played with Marchand for two seasons in Boston, was there for the Bruins' record-setting 2022-23 season, in which they set the NHL mark for points in a season (135) and wins (65) before losing to the Panthers in an epic seven-game series in the Eastern Conference First Round, a series in which Marchand had the game-winner on his stick with a breakaway in the waning seconds of Game 5 that would have won Boston the series. Instead, the Panthers went to the Stanley Cup Final, perhaps the ultimate "what if" of Marchand's career.

"You could never argue his compete level, his energy, his work ethic and the way he impacted games," Foligno said last week in Boston before taking a leave of absence from the Blackhawks. "He was such a great leader in that aspect, and I'm thrilled for him that he's going to get an opportunity to come back here and be appreciated for what he's meant to this organization."

He was, in so many ways, the connective tissue that helped bind the team.

"For him to be able to bring guys together and make guys laugh and really light up the mood was important because you can't always be serious," Bergeron said. "I think there's moments when you need Marshy to get in there and have a few laughs and a few chirps, that's what a locker room is all about."

It's what the Panthers found out at the end of last season. It's what the Bruins always knew was there.

Florida headed to Boston after their game against the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday, making for an extended stay for Marchand in his former city. There will be nights to see friends, to catch up, with those who made Boston what it was for him.

As Bergeron said, "He's gonna have a lot of people that are going to try to pull him to go for dinner."

He will be forced, in so many ways, to think about it all: the things he misses, the people he misses, the moments that were part of him for so long.

"Little things," said Marchand, who intends to keep his family's home in Boston. "Going down to the coffee shops and the people that wish you good luck before every game and the routine you get into, the security guards, stuff like that, the people that we interact with between every period coming on and off the ice.

"You've got your regular fans that have been there for 15, 20 years that you bump into every day and it's just -- that's the thing -- it's not even so much the hockey aspect on the ice. It's more the emotional and the relationships off the ice that kind of hits you when you come back."

This trip is, notably, the only time the Panthers come to Boston, the only chance Marchand will have to play at TD Garden this season. The only opportunity for the fans to see him, to cheer him, to boo him, to welcome him back.

"I don't expect there to be too many boos," Marchand said. "There may be some. I think with the relationship that I had with the fans in my tenure there, I'm sure there will still be some fans there.

"I think a lot of people are not too happy about the fact that it's Florida that I'm with after some of the battles that we've had recently with them. But I still think they'll be able to separate me from that and kind of what we've all been through together.

"But that could change pretty quick, knowing the Boston fans, they're very emotional and supportive of their team. So they might have forgotten already. We'll see."

For Marchand, the fact that he only has to do this once this season, only has to go through this once, that's OK.

That once will have to count.

"I think he gave Boston Bruins fans some amazing moments here," Foligno said. "Let's not forget what he's meant to this franchise. I'm looking forward for him to have that moment here with the fans and say goodbye in a proper way."