Boston Bruins: Brad Marchand celebrates his 100th playoff game

Brad Marchand celebrated his 100th playoff game for the Boston Bruins last night, doing so in style with a goal in his team’s 2-1 Game 3 win over the Carolina Hurricanes.

With the Boston Bruins on the verge of sweeping the Eastern Conference final, Brad Marchand must be viewed as one of the key figures. His goal marked his sixth this post-season and 16th point of the 2019 playoffs; both figures that see him leading the team totals, albeit a four-way share of the goalscoring lead.

Brad Marchand has come a long way since being selected in the third round (71st overall) of the 2006 NHL Entry Draft. Third round picks are by no means a guarantee that you’ll get any measure of success from the player – the Boston Bruins lucked in big-time on their selection though!

It took until 2009 before he was ready to make his regular season bow, after first having spent a whole season with the Providence Bruins of the AHL, including his first professional playoff action. Even the year he made his debut, he didn’t quite stick with the ‘big club’.

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At the end of the 2009-10 season, you could already say that Brad Marchand was a successful third round pick; he’d played in 20 games after all. In that time, perhaps the craziest thing was that he notched just 1 assist – the advancement in his game since then has been remarkable.

It was the 2010-11 season where we saw the development of the player we know today. Of course, that season ended with his first and only Stanley Cup win thus far, but for Brad Marchand, it was the year he truly arrived in the NHL, demonstrating a two-way game that earned big plaudits.

Not only that, he showed up where it counted in his first ever NHL post-season, tallying 19 points; 11 of them goals as the Boston Bruins marched to the Cup. That figure, of course, included 2 goals in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final – not bad for a rookie getting his first taste of the playoffs! That Stanley Cup winning season saw Brad Marchand make 25 appearances in the play-offs; a quarter of his overall tally.

Since that year, he has been the epitome of consistency in the post-season; he is a player the Boston Bruins can rely upon not just in a first line shutdown role, but also to break the deadlock when it matters – his game winner in Game 3 of the current Eastern Conference final series is proof of that.

Whilst other teams sure love to hate Marchand’s antics and general all-round peskiness, it’s safe to say that just makes Bruins fans love him more! As long as he stays on the right side of the NHL Department of Player Safety and isn’t adjudged any silly suspensions, long may it continue!

Brad marks the 12th Boston Bruins player to crack the 100 appearances in the playoffs; here’s hoping he only manages to make it to 105 by the end of the post-season! Not bad for a third rounder really!