It didn’t seem possible that the Boston Bruins would trade former captain Brad Marchand. If there was a player who was going to be a Boston Bruin for life, it was Marchand, joining former teammate Patrice Bergeron in the franchise's lore.
However, when contract extension talks reportedly stalled last Friday before the 3 o’clock ET trade deadline, the Bruins front office decided to move Marchand for a return. It was not the return that many had hoped from the Florida Panthers, but he is gone.
After trading Marchand, Boston is 2-0-0 with impressive, yet stunning, wins over the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers. They picked up a 4-0 win over the Lightning on Saturday afternoon, then rallied from a 2-0 third period deficit against the Panthers on Tuesday night at the TD Garden with three goals in the final 12-plus minutes for a 3-2 victory. Nobody saw those results coming.
Boston has looked like a different team since the trades, as the deadline and it leaves many people thinking that Marchand may have been the issue with the team for their struggles this season. It’s easy to point the finger like that, but one former NHL analyst is not having it.
Former NHL analyst Mike Millbury goes ballistic defending Brad Marchand
Mike Millbury, a former Bruins coach and NHL analyst for NBC from 2007-21, defended Marchand on his weekly appearance on the Greg Hill Show on WEEI Thursday and did so adamantly.
“Bullcrap. That's just bullcrap,” said Millbury. “I don't believe that. First of all, his reputation as a good guy is long, and people have told me that all over the place. I've met him a couple times myself. He seems like a really good hockey player-type guy. He plays his butt off. There's no possible way that he could have been the reason for this. Anybody who suggests that to me I think is barking up the wrong tree.”
Barking up the wrong tree about Marchand may very well be wrong, but the evidence can help, but maybe support that it may be the case. You could also make the case that trading Charlie Coyle and Brandon Carlo might also be part of the revival, as well as injecting new talent that is playing for jobs in 2025-26.
Is this Bruins streak following the trade deadline going to lead to a surprising playoff berth at the end of the season? Probably not and eventually things will return to the normal struggles if the Black and Gold, but the encouraging sign is they are going to go down fighting, but something has changed in the last six days since the trade deadline. Why that is, is anyone’s guess, but Millbury doesn’t think it surrounds Marchand, clearly.