Brad Marchand Grateful for Opportunity to Win With Florida Panthers

“They’re built for the playoffs. They’re built to win. They play a winning style, they play the game 200 feet the right way and they are very difficult to play against,” Marchand said.

FORT LAUDERDALE — When Brad Marchand walked into the Florida Panthers dressing room for the first time, he saw flashbacks to the Boston Bruins team he lifted the Stanley Cup with in 2011.

That was what he came to South Florida to do after contract negotiations with Boston came to an impasse ahead of the 2025 NHL Trade Deadline.

After 16 seasons, over 1,000 games, 422 goals, and 917 points in a Bruins sweater, Marchand finds himself putting on new colors for the first time in his career.

“It was a whirlwind here the last few days,” Marchand said. “Obviously, it’s sad to leave a place that I look at as home. I have a lot of great memories in Boston and a ton of incredible years there, but it’s extremely exciting to be part of such an incredible group.

“When I walked in the room the other day, I had flashbacks to the year that we won and some of the groups we had over the years that I looked at as incredible chemistry and incredible culture. And when you walk in here and see the way the guys interact and the relationships that they have, and not just within the room as players, but with staff, coaches and management, it shows why they’ve been the pillar in the league the last few years. So, I’m excited to be part of this group.”

It is a bittersweet feeling for Marchand.

The 36-year-old has been a franchise cornerstone for the Bruins for years — taking over the captaincy from Patrice Bergeron after he retired in 2023. He won a Stanley Cup there, developed a reputation as one of the NHL’s toughest players to play against there, and his No. 63 is a shoo-in to be raised to the rafters of TD Garden when it is all said and done.

But with Marchand and general manager Don Sweeney far apart in negotiations — and the Bruins already opting to sell off Charlie Coyle and Brandon Carlo for assets to build for the future —both sides had to move on.

“The way I look at things, it would have been an incredible opportunity to be in Boston and play in one place my entire career, but I’ve always had this attitude that you need to be grateful for every opportunity,” Marchand said. “The gratitude piece does not get lost. It’s a privilege to be part of this league and to be able to play here, and to be able to play a game that we love every day for a living.

“So, when the trade happened, I was disappointed , I was sad, but I’m still extremely grateful that I get to come to an incredible place, an incredible team, a very, very competitive team and that’s what you want. We ultimately chase the Stanley Cup, and you want a chance at player for that every single year. To be able to be part of a team that has that opportunity again this year, I’m very grateful for that.”

Marchand has witnessed firsthand just how hard it is to beat the Panthers in the playoffs. After all, his Bruins were eliminated in the playoffs in Florida in back-to-back years — in a seven-game first-round series where the Panthers came back from a 3-1 series deficit in 2023 and a five-game second-round series in 2024.

“Thanks for the reminder,” he joked before getting into his answer.

“Obviously, they’ve bounced us (the Bruins) the last couple of years and it has been very remarkable to see the growth they’ve had as a group the last few years. I think, throughout the year here this year, we played this team multiple times and I remember thinking ‘that’s the team to beat this year.’

“I thought that the way they came at you in waves all game long, just the depth they had in their group, they have the experience. They know what it takes when they get in those tough situations and that’s invaluable. They didn’t lose many guys and the guys that they did replace them with are great players. I just looked at the group and I was like ‘that’s the team that has the ability to go all the way again.’”

The Panthers play a style of hockey Marchand is very familiar with.

They are in your face, they run right through you and they agitate the hell out of you. That is a style of play that players like Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Bennett provide, and he is excited to be yet another ringleader in the fracas for the Panthers.

“Those guys are incredible players. They have created a niche and a game that has allowed them to have an incredible amount of success in this league,” Marchand said. “But what I love about it is they play the right way. There are guys that are built for the regular season and there’s guys who are built for the playoffs. And they’re built for the playoffs. They’re built to win. They play a winning style, they play the game 200 feet the right way and they are very difficult to play against.

“The way I look at my game, i never played a certain way because I felt like I had to for a group or to try to get the team going, I played my way because that’s just how I play. And that’s what they do. So, I don’t feel like I need to change anything. I can’t change anything because that would be a detriment. But I think we will have a lot of complimentary piece of our game. When you look at their team, there’s a lot of guys that play the way they do. I think that’s just the way they are coached is to play through guys and to play hard, and they stick up for each other in piles because they have the love for one another and they stick together, and that’s what winning teams have.”

Marchand will not be available right away.

He missed Boston’s last three games prior to the trade with an upper-body injury he sustained on March 1. He was listed as “week-to-week” by the Bruins after he took a hard hit into the boards from Pittsburgh’s P.O. Joseph, and an exact timeline is not readily available.

But he is excited to get in the lineup, whenever that may be.

“I’m getting better every day is I guess how I would describe it,” Marchand said. “Timeline-wise, I don’t really know when I’ll be back. It’s always been something that I’ve taken a lot of pride in is trying to limit the amount of games I miss and trying to push through whatever I can to play, and that won’t change here.”