The 2024-25 season continues to be a rollercoaster ride for the Boston Bruins. After stringing together their longest winning streak of the season (four), they’ve dropped two games in a row, losing 8-1 against the Winnipeg Jets and 5-1 against the Seattle Kraken. Both were important games for the team to try and show if the changes and steps forward they took in their winning streak were for real or not. The result? This is still a middling team that will beat teams with a record worse than them, and lose to teams with a better record.
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Still, the promotion of Joe Sacco to head coach has had some positive impacts on players. Whether it’s his coaching style or the reality check of having a head coach fired remains to be seen. Nevertheless, several players, particularly the team’s star players who had a pretty rough start across the board, have gotten it together in recent weeks. One of those players is team captain Brad Marchand.
A Rough Start to 2024-25
It was not an easy offseason for the 36-year-old captain. Marchand had three surgeries this past offseason to address a torn tendon in his elbow, a sports hernia in his groin, and another sports hernia in his abdominal area. This limited him significantly, and didn’t really start training full-out until two weeks prior to training camp starting. As a result, he was very limited in training camp, only becoming a full participant at the end of September. Additionally, he only appeared in two preseason games, one of which he left early due to illness.
With all of these factors and his age, it wasn’t exactly surprising that he had a slow start to the season. He looked rusty and like his age was finally starting to show. It took him nine games to score his first goal of the season (coming against the Toronto Maple Leafs of course). Additionally, after spending almost the entirety of his career as a plus player in terms of plus/minus, Marchand was consistently finishing games with a negative number in that section of his stat line.
Through the first 11 games, Marchand averaged .48 points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, the worst in his career. Additionally, like the rest of the roster, he was playing undisciplined, taking a number of bad penalties.
Turning It Around
In the last few weeks, Marchand has turned it around from his rough start and is resembling more of the player people have come to expect. In the 11 games since Jim Montgomery was fired, he has 10 points. Additionally, he had his first two-goal game of the season against the New York Islanders, and did it again while facing off against the Chicago Blackhawks. He was also the only player to have points in both of their recent losses, assisting on David Pastrnak’s goal against the Jets and scoring the lone goal on a penalty shot against the Kraken.
Marchand is solidly in second place for points on the team, once again only trailing Pastrnak. He has 12 goals and 23 points in 31 games, putting him on pace to finish the season with 31 goals and 60 points in 82 games. This wouldn’t be far off from his 29 goals and 67 points he finished 2023-24 with.
Additionally, Marchand was recently deservedly named to Team Canada for the 4 Nations Face-Off. This shows that there is a general consensus that people didn’t believe the slump he was in to start the season would last forever. Yes, he has taken a step back from his play in 2018-19 when he had 100 points. But he has rounded back into form in the last few weeks.
Next Contract?
There is obviously an extra dimension to Marchand’s performance this season because he’s in a contract year. He is in the final season of an eight-year, $49 million deal that went into effect in the 2017-18 season. The captain has made it clear that he wants to stay in Boston and finish out his career in the black and gold.
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There have been rumors that he was close to a three-year deal, but Marchand has denied those reports to the media. In a lot of ways, the ball is in his court. Will he go the Patrice Bergeron route and take a big pay cut for the final few seasons? How many more seasons does he want to play?
While there was never really a chance that Marchand wouldn’t be re-signed by the Bruins, it is certainly reassuring to the front office to see his turnaround from the start of the season. He is the heart and soul of the team, and hopefully, he is able to stay closer to his current performance than how he started the season.
