Marchand's work ethic, fear of slowing down pushed him to 1,000 points

There are places that Brad Marchand wants to go, to see: The Wonders of the World, Italy, Greece, places where hockey is usually not much more than a whisper. Places that his wife, Katrina, would like to travel. Places that Sloan, his son, would like to visit.

The time for that is not now. Not yet.

Marchand cannot chance a week -- or more -- without a gym, without ice. Even the thought of that starts to give him anxiety, the unease spreading, the concern flooding through him. Because every moment Marchand is not training, is not working on staving off the creep of time, is a moment lost.

And he cannot afford to lose even a single one.

"I have a fear of not being good enough or being pushed out [of the League] or falling off a cliff and just not being able to play anymore," Marchand recently told NHL.com. "The fear aspect, it gives me anxiety. Like, I will wake up, if I don't do what I feel like I need to do, I'll get anxiety throughout the day.

"It's the anxiety that I get if I'm away, if I take time off, it's crippling to me, like that fear of -- if I don't get on the ice, if I don't do my work, it'll consume my life because I feel like other guys are doing it and I'm not and they're getting better than me. I always have to stay on top of it."

That fear, that push of nerves, is part of what has allowed Marchand to last in a League that can be punishing, especially for players as they hit their late 30s. Instead, the 37-year-old Florida Panthers forward seems to have found a new gear, as demonstrated in the Stanley Cup Playoffs last spring, and again as he tallied his 1,000th career NHL point on Thursday, with two assists in a 6-3 win against the Washington Capitals, a number that would have seemed unimaginable in the days when he was just a fourth-line agitator for the Boston Bruins. He has 20 points (11 goals, nine assists) in 16 games this season.

"The work ethic for Brad was incredible," said Patrice Bergeron, who spent more than a decade as Marchand's linemate with the Bruins. "With his game-breaking ability, he would always be extremely clutch and took it up a notch every time we needed something important or late in games.

"So that confidence, that demeanor, that perseverance … he came in and he played on the fourth line and worked his way up and that was all hard work and all from his own doing and from his determination, his discipline, his resilience. He was breathing it every day and it was very contagious for everyone to be a part of that."

Marchand is hitting milestones that few have reached, becoming just the 36th player in NHL history to record 1,000 games (1,116), 1,000 points and 1,000 penalty minutes (1,133), numbers that will only increase for a player signed for five more seasons after this one. Though former teammate Andrew Ference joked that he shouldn't be allowed to count his 13 career 10-minute misconducts among that number.

"It's just a wild stat," Marchand said. "It's just so unique, I think it epitomizes what I was like as a player. That's me through and through. It's kind of symbolic of the representation of my career and what I was like -- it's funny, the PIMs kind of represent the first half and I think the points kind of represent the second half."

But because of that fear, because of that deep desire to wring every last second out of a career that Marchand already knows won't be nearly long enough for him, the forward continues to put his vacations on hold, to slip the few he does take into narrow windows.

Obsessive? Perhaps. Healthy or unhealthy? Unclear.

"It's both," he said, and laughed. "If we're being honest, it's definitely unhealthy. It's healthy in the fact that it's allowed me to accomplish things that I never thought that I would and I can guarantee 99.9 percent of people who scouted me or looked at me and fans or whatever never thought I would.

"But at the same time, it does ruin situations and it does make it hard on the people around me because I get very selfish with my time."

While many of his NHL brethren will take a couple of weeks or a month off from training, from skating, Marchand refuses to do so. He will take a single week off ice -- but not stop working out -- and in that week his family will relocate, though if ice were easier to come by in other places, it's doubtful whether he would even take those seven days away from his skates.

It's why Katrina Marchand knows that each time they do make it out of town they will be checking an extra bag. And it won't be hers.

"When you travel, the gyms aren't great," Marchand said, noting that they often pick destinations based on the gym set-up in hotels. "They have some stuff, but they're not great, so you're kind of makeshift in what you do. There's been a couple of pieces of equipment that I've found that I bring with me that help a little bit, so we've got to pay the overage fee with the bags."

Because, as Marchand put it, "She knows I'll ruin the trip if I don't have that."

None of this, of course, was a given. It wasn't until Marchand was 27 that he passed 60 points in a season, getting 61 (37 goals, 24 assists) in 2015-16, and it wasn't until after he scored the game-winning goal in the gold medal game of the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, that his numbers truly soared, for 85 points (39 goals, 46 assists) in 2016-17, 85 (34 goals, 51 assists) in 2017-2018 and 100 (36 goals, 64 assists) in 2018-19, when the Bruins made the Stanley Cup Final.

"He made himself into the player that he is," said defenseman Matt Grzelcyk, his Bruins teammate for eight seasons. "He started on the fourth line, started in Providence (of the American Hockey League) for two years. Everyone sees, as teammates, how hard he works off the ice and it's just grown every year. He wants to continue to get better even now in the summers. He's always working on little specific things to grow his game."

It was only when Marchand hit 800 points, on Nov. 5, 2022, on a penalty shot against the Toronto Maple Leafs, that the number 1,000 began to come into view. He started doing the math in his head, knowing that he had two more seasons beyond that one on his contract with the Boston Bruins.

He thought maybe, just maybe, it was attainable by the time the deal ran out.

He started to hope.

He also started to worry.

Marchand had always had a good relationship with Bruins general manager Don Sweeney, who had served as his first director of player development. Sweeney lasted 16 seasons in the NHL as a defenseman, playing 1,115 games, and so Marchand kept up a long-running conversation with him about what to do, what not to do, how best to hold back the hands of time.

"He was my player development guy, so he kind of treated me like that all the way through," Marchand said. "I obviously looked at him like a GM, but I also looked at him as the guy that helped me develop.

"He probably coached me more in the last 10 years than the coaches coached me because he wasn't nervous to come down and he'd tell me how my game was, he was just brutally honest with me. [We] talked a lot about the training aspect and ways to kind of slow that curve is what he would say. Everyone's going to drop off, and just try to slow it."

That is the entire goal.

Marchand, who signed his current six-year deal with the Panthers on July 1, does not want to be pushed out of the League. He does not want to be an older player playing out his contract, being outskated and left behind. He does not want the biological realities of aging to overtake the worth ethic and the will.

"You could never argue his compete level, his energy, his work ethic and the way he impacted games," former teammate Nick Foligno said. "Just the way he would drag us into games, too, he's not the biggest guy, you kind of forget, but he plays like a wrecking ball out there. You've got to respect a guy like that who understands and he plays bigger than he is. You love having those guys on your team."

So, 16 years after he started in the NHL with 20 games and only a single assist in 2009-10, Marchand continues to chase the game, the dream. The numbers, yes, but also simply trying to squeeze every last ounce out of what he had been given, what he had worked for, every single second out of the sport he loves.

"It's not something that I ever really cared about trying to do or even thought about doing because it was just never in the realm of reality," Marchand said of reaching 1,000 points. "But once it was, it was like, wow, this is incredible, I really want to hit that milestone. That's special.

"And then 500 goals, too, that's one part of why I want to play so long. I never thought that [was possible]. It's in eyesight."

Marchand is 65 goals away from 500, a number 49 players have reached. He is 84 games from 1,200.

They are numbers reserved mostly for players at the end of their careers, in the back half, players who know the end is closer than the beginning.

Marchand, though, still feels like he has so much left.

"The wild thing is it doesn't feel like that," he said. "It doesn't feel like it's been that long, it's been that many, it feels like it's gone by so fast. I still feel like a young guy. And I think that's why I love the game so much because it makes me feel young, like I come into the rink every day with young guys and I act young and kind of catch myself, I'm like, you're the old guy. Not supposed to be acting like a young guy."

And yet, he is. He's among the NHL leaders in goals, on pace for 50-plus goals, which would be a career high, surpassing the 39 he scored in 2016-17.

"There's only a few years left that I get to do that and I'm not going to walk away from it before I'm prepared to do that and before I'm ready," Marchand said. "I've always wanted to be the one that can make that decision. I never wanted someone to make that decision for me, or a team not want me because I wasn't good enough and I'm just hanging on.

"That's a challenge that I accept every summer and I try to prepare for. There's always something to prove, I feel."

Marchand doesn't believe that complacency will ever set in with him, that he will ever voluntarily slow down, that he will ease up, that he will allow the fear to overwhelm him, that he will permit the League to catch up to him, that he will let anyone else decide whether or not he belongs in an NHL jersey.

Not while he still has a chance to take the ice every night. Not while he can keep pursuing a dream that has never stopped feeling like a dream.

"I keep chasing," Marchand said. "I love the game. I love playing in the NHL. I love being part of a team and being in the room with the guys. I still feel really good. I still feel like I can play. Until I don't, I'm going to keep chasing it."

So, yes, the vacations can wait.