BOSTON — Earlier in the day, Brad Marchand said being back at TD Garden as a visiting player four days after being traded felt weird.
He had no idea how much weirder it was going to get.
As part of their attempts to start rebuilding in the midst of a disappointing season, the Bruins traded five veteran players last week. The most noteworthy of those was Marchand. The Bruins sent their captain to the Panthers. Florida not only beat Boston in the playoffs each of the last two seasons, but they were scheduled to play at TD Garden on Tuesday.
Marchand wasn’t in the lineup with an upper body injury, but he was in the building with his new team.
Watching the last few minutes of the Bruins’ 3-2 win over the Panthers — his Panthers now — had to have been incredibly strange for the injured former Bruins captain.
His new team, whom he’s practiced with just one time, built up a two-goal lead against the Bruins, whose inability to deliver in big moments this season contributed directly to him being traded on Friday.
But then his old team dug down and found something that’s been missing all year. They scored three straight goals against the defending Stanley Cup champions and all-world goalie Sergei Bobrovsky to take a late lead.
Then, to top it off, Nikita Zadorov fired up the TD Garden by roughing up Sam Bennnett, the same Sam Bennett who concussed Marchand in the playoffs last year and then became his friend on Team Canada at the NHL 4 Nations Face-Off.
The fight, the comeback and the win would have been just the sort of night that would have inspired Marchand a week ago. Back when he was still trying to pull, prod and lead this Bruins team back from its disappointing start into an unlikely playoff berth, he’d have been emotional and proud of the resilience and the fortitude of his younger teammates.
In a season where they looked dead, the Bruins still came with some fight. Since the trade deadline, those same teammates have talked about living up to the standards Marchand set, even through he wasn’t there anymore to model them.
On Tuesday, they did live up to them, with him in the building, but wearing the other team’s colors.
Only he knows what that felt like because he wasn’t available after the game and watched from someplace private. If he’d been on the ice, it would have been different. The same competitive fire that sometimes overcame his better judgment on the ice might have overwhelmed any lingering sentimentality. But he wasn’t on the ice and he’s never been in a battle yet as a Panther.
As he watched, was he conflicted? Silently proud? This was Boston’s third straight really good game against a playoff-bound team. Was he frustrated that the Bruins waited this long to play this well?
Nothing would be surprising. But this couldn’t have been something he envisioned. Despite the injury, Marchand made the trip to Boston to better get to know his new teammates and get a chance to say goodbye to his old ones.
He found time to spend over 30 minutes answering questions from the Boston media on Tuesday morning. He admitted he was excited to be a Panther and sad to leave the Bruins. He still loved Boston, the fans and the franchise and his old teammates, but was eager to chase a Stanley Cup.
The day figured to provide a chance for some closure for him and the Bruins. His injury made things a little easier. He could be in the building but not have to partake in trying to drive a stake deeper into the heart of the Bruins’ dwindling playoff chances.
At the beginning of the season, a Bruins-Panthers game in March figured to be a game to circle on the calendar because it would likely be a playoff preview. Four days ago, it looked like a meaningless contest for a Bruins team likely to be just playing out the string after losing so much at the deadline. Instead, it turned into something oddly memorable.
Especially for Brad Marchand.
