Brad Marchand has been around the Boston Bruins long enough to see how the team responds to some of the most crushing defeats in the organization’s history.
Marchand certainly experienced one recently with Boston’s historic season coming to a crashing halt in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs to the Florida Panthers. Some players even compared it to the Bruins losing in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final on home ice to the St. Louis Blues in 2019.
But there was another infamous moment that Marchand likened Boston’s first-round exit to. In the 2010 Eastern Conference semifinals, the Bruins blew not only a 3-0 series lead to the Philadelphia Flyers — becoming the third team in NHL history to do so — but they also squandered a three-goal advantage in Game 7.
It was a low point for the Bruins, similar to what they are dealing with now. Marchand broke into the NHL in 2010, but didn’t play a single minute in the playoffs that year. His first full NHL season came in the 2010-2011 campaign, and how the Bruins bounced back by winning the Stanley Cup after the previous year’s meltdown stuck with him. It also provides him with the blueprint to lead the Bruins’ locker room through the current situation they face.
“Obviously, it’s not the way that we would’ve liked to end (this) season but I think the worst thing that we could do is not try to learn from it and not try to take out what we can from this year and from our experiences and our failures,” Marchand said during Tuesday’s exit interview day at Warrior Ice Arena. “The year we won in ’11, the year before that, the Bruins were up in the series, up in Game 7, and then they learned from that.
“The next year they went out and it made them stronger, and they achieved it the next year. So, it’s something that we can learn from and build upon. We will be the first to say that we expected a lot more out of this run. We expected to be playing into June, but that’s not how it was meant to be.”
Marchand isn’t far from the only player hoping to use the stinging defeat to the Panthers as fuel. Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman shared a similar sentiment following the Game 7 loss.
Marchand admitted it will be hard not to replay the series in their heads. That’s inevitable. But how they learn from it and possibly replace the memories with sweeter ones is what they are aiming for in an effort to help them move forward.
“It doesn’t mean that it’s going to be any easier to realize the opportunity lost,” Marchand said. “But it’s probably how it’s all going to play out is we’ll look back and kind of wish there were some things we could change. And then it will be time to get ready for the next season and move on. I think forever we’ll look back at this. I still look back at past playoff series and times we’ve lost and I wish there was things that I had done differently. And this one won’t be any different.”
