BRIGHTON, Mass. — Brad Marchand answered many questions regarding the Bruins’ crushing Stanley Cup playoffs elimination at Tuesday’s exit interview day at Warrior Ice Arena but still had time to find a little bit of humor in the aftermath.
The topic of whether or not trade deadline acquisitions Dmitry Orlov, Tyler Bertuzzi and Garnet Hathaway would be welcome additions to the Black and Gold for a full season if the stars aligned and the team was able to sign them to new contracts allowed Marchand the opportunity to think past this current season.
“Yeah, obviously, we’d love for all of them to stay except for Bert,” Marchand said with a laugh. “No, we’d love for everybody to stay. They’re all incredible guys. Off the ice as well as players on the ice. They gelled with our group right away, and we all got along really well with all three of them.”
Marchand noted on a “Behind the B” episode how hard it was to play against those three guys and said everyone he hated in the league was now on his team.
“I still hate those guys,” Marchand said with a chuckle. “No, yeah, I’m sure there are some guys that I could find if I really thought about it, but you know I’m trying to love everybody now. It’s frustrating. I don’t like playing with guys that I hated because now I love them, and we get along great off the ice.”
Marchand seemed to have put his instigating style of play aside during the season and especially during the playoffs, something he hasn’t been able to do in the past. He only took one penalty in the seven-game series despite being manhandled on several occasions by different Panthers.
“I just think that you know as I get older, I’ve been through enough situations where I’ve learned that they’ll come playoff time you can play around with that stuff,” the reformed agitator said. “I wasn’t overly happy with how my regular season went. So I really wanted to focus on just playing and being a good player and not have the extracurricular stuff you know and felt like if I was going to be at the top of my game, I had to stay away from that stuff. And so I was happy with how it went but you know, still need a little bit more.”
Marchand said he was planning on having a normal offseason to get stronger and healthier for next year.
