Brad Marchand plays a key role in Florida Panthers’ second championship run

The 37-year-old winger had wondered if he’d be returning to his roots as a fourth-liner but instead had a major impact on the third line alongside young Finns Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen.

“I truly don’t think we win a Stanley Cup without him,” leading playoff goal-scorer and Conn Smythe Trophy winner Sam Bennett said of Marchand. “His leadership, his will to win, it’s inspiring. I was telling him before every game, ‘We’re going to follow you.’ And we did. He was a dog every night.”

Marchand hoisted the Cup again 14 years after winning it with the Bruins in 2011 against Vancouver. Among his signature moments, the Nova Scotia native scored two highlight-reel goals in Game 5 at Edmonton to put the Panthers ahead in a heavyweight final.

“He’s been amazing for us all playoffs,” teammate Matthew Tkachuk said. “He seems to keep finding another gear. The more important the game, the better he is.”

Marchand said he felt at home with his new team.

“We just had that fire. We knew we had something special,” he said. “It’s such an incredible culture and everyone that’s come in here, it’s like we’ve been here a lot longer than a few months. It’s a family. Guys love each other in this room. You buy into it immediately. Guys embrace you. It’s incredible.”

Getting Marchand was an 11th-hour move. Coach Paul Maurice was about to leave the team’s practice facility a half-hour before the deadline when general manager Bill Zito came out of his office and said, “What about Brad Marchand?”

“If he had asked that a year and a half ago, I would’ve thought he was joking,” Maurice said. “But he’s been able to find these players that we didn’t think were possible and he’s been able to get these deals done. When he fired that out, I think there was a bit of a pause, his face was serious, everybody nodded and that’s it.”

Marchand for what turned out to be a first-round pick seems like a steal, even if he departs as a free agent this summer. He turned out to be an ideal fit and was a big reason the Panthers went back to back.

“He just happened to be the perfect style of player to take that line to a completely different level, and that’s where our need was,” Maurice said. “What Bill has always done here in my experience, he’s identified the need and filled the hole.”

On the ice, Marchand was a breath of fresh air and maybe the final piece of the puzzle. He also brought his trademark mouth to the equation, always chatting guys up and filling the void for noise when necessary.

“With Brad, the whole room knows, so there’s no secrets of what he is as a player, as a competitor,” Zito said. “Getting to know him a little bit more as a human, he’s more special than I could have imagined on that front as a teammate and as a character human. From that standpoint, it was like frosting on the cake.”

Will he be back?

“We’ll see what happens here soon,” Marchand said before heading off to celebrate.

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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Stephen Whyno, The Associated Press

by Canadian Press

Brad Marchand plays a key role in Florida Panthers’ second championship run

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