Brad Marchand Was Ready for the Captain's C

Brad Marchand has spent most of his 13 year career with the Boston Bruins playing on the edge: In addition to 862 career points in 947 games, the 35 year old forward also holds the distinction of receiving more suspensions than any player in the history of the National Hockey League.

The game—how it is played and refereed—has changed a lot over the years, but Marchand’s play has teetered and often slipped past the boundaries of what is acceptable on the ice thanks to his competitive drive mixed with a touch of anger. It’s taken time, but Marchand has channeled those elements over the years and used it to make him one of the league’s best two-way players, growing from “the little ball of hate” to the Bruins’ newest captain.

Brad Marchand takes the C from his longtime linemate Patrice Bergeron, who retired after the 2022-23 season and who Marchand calls, “the best two-way player to ever play the game.” Life without Bergeron poses plenty of questions for Marchand and the Bruins, but Marchand—the unlikely steady old man—will do his best to lead the team to his fourth Stanley Cup final. (They won it once, when he was a rookie.)

Marchand sat down for an interview after a practice at the Bruins’ practice facility in Brighton, Massachusetts.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

I think there's a few things that worked for me in this situation. One was my dad's coach [Donnie Matheson] when he was playing junior hockey became a scout for the Bruins and watched a lot of my games. He's the one who brought me to the Bruins organization and led the way of me being drafted. Then my best friend, Andrew Bodnarchuk, was also drafted by the Bruins the same year. Because the two of us had each other to go through the ranks with, I felt way more comfortable being here than I think I would've in a lot of other places. You have someone who you're extremely close with that you can really open up to and relate to and just be comfortable around in an uncomfortable situation. Then I had Donnie in my corner as well, pushing for me and helping me out and letting me know what I needed to do to make it.

Not all teams are built the way this organization is—they want kids that want to be here and really care about winning and winners. If they see that in you, then they're going to do everything they can to develop you and give you that opportunity. I think they saw that. They knew that I wanted to win. They knew I wanted to get better. They could see that I was willing to do whatever I had to be here and they worked and they gave me a lot of opportunity and a lot of feedback on what they needed for me.

We would talk a little bit here and there about it, but I really didn't want to put any pressure on him. I make comments to him about coming back this year and stuff like that every now and again and try to get a read on him.

It gets to a point, and I think this is probably what happened to him, where your body starts to break down. He’s won a Cup. He’s played 20 years and he's financially set. He's got four kids at home that are young and your body starts breaking down and you want to be able to be there for them for a long healthy at a young age and be able to keep up with them and give them everything. It starts to drag on your wear on you when you're away a lot when you're missing birthdays and you're missing events for the kids and stuff like that when you don't have to. He's given everything to the game that he possibly could.

It was just time for him. It's tough because we were very close. We spent a lot of time together, especially towards the end and I knew how much he put into the game and I thought we did a lot together around the team. When I would talk to him about different things happening in the room or with the team, I realized the time he's putting into it away from the rink and thinking how much time he is thinking about it and trying to come up with ideas to make things better, to improve the group, whatever it is. It's a full-time job for him away from the rink. So I could see mentally why it would be easier for him to walk away from the game when you see how much he takes it home.

It's hard without him. I miss him all the time and am still getting used to him not being around. But that's the thing about sports: the game forgets about you pretty quick.It's just a machine. It just keeps running and it doesn't matter. We are all going to go through it and the game's going to go on.

Yeah, I wanted it.

I wasn't really worried about the penalties or suspensions because there's a lot of things that have happened throughout my career, but the team knows every time I go on the ice I compete and I want to win. I have learned from guys before me to prepare to win and I'm willing to do whatever it takes out there. Do I cross the line sometimes? Yeah, I do, but it's because I'm trying to win and I care about the guys in the room. So I wasn't worried about any of that stuff. We have some young guys on our team that are going to be incredible players—that are incredible players, that are great leaders. It could have gone to a number of guys, so I wasn't sure where it was going to go, but I wanted it because it's an incredible honor and it's something that I never ever thought would happen in my career.

When you're a kid, you just dream of playing in the NHL. You don't dream of being a captain. Those are the elite of the elites and the one percent or the one percent. I never thought that my career would take me to that point. When it became something that could happen, I really wanted it.

I think the thing that I learned the most was to not get comfortable. I think that would be the biggest thing that if I could go back and tell myself is not to get comfortable, every day you have to earn your job and earn your spot. There was a point where I got comfortable and it almost got me traded a couple years in.

You have to do everything you possibly can to make the team and you're willing to do whatever it takes, and then you play a year or two and you're like, Okay, this is getting a little bit easier. And then maybe you don't train as hard or you start letting other things get in the way of that and you start traveling a little bit more or golfing or whatever it is, and your game slips a little bit, and then every year there's kid's coming up trying to take your job and your performance needs to be there. Expectations need to be met, especially in an organization like this that wants to win. And then you get to a point where you're established and then age catches up to you and you have to almost have the same mindset you did when you first came in that you have to do everything you can to not let a kid take your spot, to not slow down, to not get old and start to deteriorate and not lose the step. That’s my mindset now.

I think my compete level probably is what separates me. I think that I just find ways to compete to win. And so I think I've learned how to get better in a lot of other areas, and I can win battles and make plays over the corners or whatever it is. But I think my biggest separator is probably my compete level.

Last year's tough. We've always said the regular season is a chance to play for a Cup. It doesn't matter who wins or what seed you're in. As long as you get in the playoffs, you have a chance to play for a Cup. Everything starts over.

Florida was actually one of the harder teams we had played all year. They were not healthy all year. They got healthy at the right time and we got hurt at the wrong time.

We had the series. We had it in our fingers and we dropped the ball. That happens in sports. I can't put my finger on one thing specifically that went wrong; everything went wrong.

We dropped the ball in game five. We had game six. We had it multiple times and we dropped the ball in game seven. It was right there. We weren't able to put it all together and every team that wins has everything go their way. That's what makes it so hard to win a Cup. You need everything to go right for you and you need to stay healthy. You need the bounces, you need the calls, you need guys to step up at the right times. That's why you can never pick who's going to win and who's going to make a good run. And as great as Florida did against us and as great of a series they had or a playoff series, they end up in the exact same spot we did. They did not win. I don't care if you go to the finals or if you lose in the first round or if you don't make the playoffs at all. If you don't win the Cup, you accomplish nothing.

It's not, because that's the only reason we play. I don't care about going to the third round or the finals. It means nothing to me. I want to win the Cup. If we don't win the Cup, then we didn't accomplish our goal and we played until June and it just hurts more. The only thing you come away with if you play in the finals and you don't win is it hurts way more than if you would've lost in the first or the second or third round or didn't make the playoffs. You never forget. I think more about losing when I was in the finals than I do about winning in the Cup.

Yeah. That's how much it weighs on your mind. You go over all the things that could have been different: the goals that could have gone in or didn't go in, or the things you could change on and off the ice that would separate you from winning a Cup to not winning. When you lose the first round, it's like, yeah, we dropped the ball. It is what it is. You lose the second round, the other teams are pretty good. Maybe we'll go next year. You don't make the playoffs at all? We had a really bad year. We'll be better next year. But when you lose in the finals, you pick apart everything forever. The more I play, I realize fortunate I was to win one early on and I want all of the guys in this group to be able to experience that.