BOSTON — Brad Marchand reached a milestone in his last game, reaching the 20-goal plateau in his rookie season.
It was an important tally as well, with Marchand scoring the game-winner in Sunday's 2-1 victory in Philadelphia that clinched a playoff berth for the Bruins.
The puck from that goal should be a treasured memento. It is, just not for Marchand.
Veteran Mark Recchi laid claim to that particular piece of vulcanized rubber. Recchi picked up an assist on the goal, and that helper moved him into a tie with Paul Coffey for 12th place all time in NHL history with 1,531 points.
Marchand had no problem letting his elder linemate keep the historic puck.
"Rex is going to keep it," Marchand said. "His is a much bigger plateau than I hit, so he can have it. He tied Paul Coffey, so I'm not even going to argue with him over that one."
There was almost no need for an argument. Recchi was originally credited with an assist in Thursday's 7-0 win over Montreal that would have tied Coffey then, but a scoring change later took the assist away, and he had to wait until Marchand's goal on Sunday for the historic point.
Marchand obviously isn't the sentimental type about such things, offering a novel way of getting a puck for himself.
"I'll just go buy a puck, I don't really care," Marchand said. "I'd probably lose the puck anyways."
Marchand is just happy not to have a daily reminder from coach Claude Julien that he had yet to fulfill his prediction of getting 20 goals. Back in January, when Marchand's production really took off when he was moved up to a line with Patrice Bergeron and Recchi, Julien went public with Marchand's bold prediction.
"He told me at some point he was going to score 20 for us this year and I think he had two goals and we were getting close to that halfway mark, right?" Julien said after Marchand scored his 13th goal in a 2-1 win over Florida on Jan. 26. "I told him he had to pick it up and he answered the call pretty good."
Marchand copped to making the prediction, and his relief that Julien couldn't hold it over him anymore.
"We were joking about it all year pretty much," Marchand said. "It was a bit of a joke, but it was still serious at the same time. He was chirping a bit there because I kind of made a comment and he was letting me know that I better back it up. Thank god I did, or else he'd have that on me."
It wasn't easy, though. Marchand scored his 19th goal on Feb. 22 and needed 13 games and more than a month before finally getting No. 20.
"It was getting frustrating," Marchand said. "I was getting lots of opportunities and it wasn't going in, so it was nice to get that one off my back. It was on my mind a little bit, but I knew if I kept pressing and kept doing the little things right it was going to come."
For all his bravado and predictions, Marchand did admit that scoring 20 goals as a rookie was about the last thing on his mind at the start of the season, when he was just worried about making the squad out of camp.
"You always want to produce if you're a bit of an offensive guy." Marchand said. "I think coming into the year, I just wanted to be defensively responsible and crack the lineup. That was the main thing, cracking the lineup. Coming into the year there were no guarantees, especially with all the guys that were coming in. I just wanted to be here. I think partway through the year I started thinking it [scoring 20 goals] was possible, but it's a long season, anything can happen. It's nice to reach that plateau."
Even if you don't have the souvenir puck to mark the milestone.
