BOSTON — On the day of the 2025 NHL trade deadline, one of the most transformative days for the Boston Bruins in recent memory, Charlie McAvoy was stuck on his couch.
The Boston defenseman was still recovering from an injury he sustained at the 4 Nations Face-Off that landed him in the hospital. The Bruins were in Tampa on a two-game trip.
McAvoy and his wife watched the minutes tick down to the 3 p.m. ET deadline and breathed a sigh of relief. Despite rumors his team might tear it all down, the damage wasn’t as bad as they had feared.
«And then things started coming in after the deadline, 3:10, 3:15,» McAvoy recalls. «And it’s just tough. It’s the nature of hockey. It’s the business of the game. But there’s human beings behind it all, great friends, great friends of my wife’s. And it’s sad. It’s never easy seeing your friends move on and go to different places.»
saying goodbye to captain Brad Marchand. It wasn’t just that the Bruins parted with a player they drafted in the third round nearly 20 years ago, a feisty winger who helped them win a Stanley Cup in 2011 and a leader who matured under their watch and continued to establish the team culture. The destination was equally stunning: Florida. The Panthers shocked the historically dominant Bruins in 2023 by knocking them out in the first round of the playoffs, then won their first Stanley Cup the following season. They were the team with which Marchand had helped brew a new rivalry. And the team that catapulted above Boston atop the hockey world.
In the seven months since the trade, Marchand helped the Panthers win another Stanley Cup, scoring six goals (and two game winners) in the Final against Edmonton. Marchand continued to taunt opponents, became beloved in the Panthers’ locker room, and seemed to be having more fun than ever embracing Florida’s culture.
«Brad is an honest man, and that’s why he fits in our group,» Florida coach Paul Maurice said in June. «He loves the game, loves the people around him, is very open, very gregarious, so just fits right in. He’s completely accepted.»
Marchand re-signed in Florida this summer on a six-year, $31.5 million deal — which one rival front office executive called «sticker shock for a 37-year-old.» Meanwhile, the Bruins embraced a hard reset, recalibrating short-term expectations while injecting the roster with younger players.
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«I’m sure that we’ll have a very neat tribute for him and all the blood, sweat, and tears that he gave for the Bruins — one of the best Bruins to ever play,» McAvoy said. «I think he’ll get an amazing ovation from the crowd. And then he’ll probably get booed right after.»
«I’m sure it’s going to be tough for some people,» Marchand said. «They won’t be able to cheer because they don’t like the Panthers very much. Maybe they’ll like me enough to give a little ‘Yay’ or something.»
IT WAS ALWAYS Marchand’s intention to be a life-long Bruin. It was the Bruins’ design to contend for a Stanley Cup last season. It all derailed with a disastrous start, which cost coach Jim Montgomery his job 20 games into the season.
«Last year was a seismic shift in terms of how we’ve been,» Bruins GM Don Sweeney told ESPN. «We had to take a cold, hard look in the mirror and understand where we were. We weren’t anywhere close to the level we had been the last six, seven years, and we had to make some really hard decisions professionally, and really hard decisions personally.»
Marchand, who was named Bruins captain in September 2023, was in the final year of an eight-year $49 million contract. While he and the Bruins were engaged in contract talks for several months, the negotiations stalled, even with the pressure point of the trade deadline looming. Marchand wanted security and to be paid his value. The Bruins had other parameters.
«I was never going to take a one or two-year deal. Not even a three-year deal. That just wasn’t in the cards,» Marchand told reporters ahead of this season. «I want to play as long as I can. That’s the main reason why it didn’t work out in Boston. I want to play until I get kicked out of the league.»
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Marchand was injured at the time of the deadline; it was looking like a timeframe of four to six weeks. Sweeney said his management group determined that because of the team’s place in the standings, the deadline would mark a «directional shift,» with a focus on adding to the team’s depleted prospect pool. Veterans Charlie Coyle, Brandon Carlo, Trent Frederic and Justin Brazeau were also traded as the Bruins acquired six draft picks (including two first-round picks and two second-round picks), two prospects (notably 21-year-old center Fraser Minten, who is already contributing) and several under-30 roster players, including Casey Mittelstadt, Marat Khusnutdinov and Henri Jokiharju.
The most difficult file was Marchand. According to sources, the Bruins had a deal in place with the Los Angeles Kings but honored Marchand’s desire to stay in the East for family reasons. Florida, unbeknownst to the public, was his top destination. He believed he might have only one more opportunity to win a Stanley Cup, and the Panthers were loading up for their back-to-back bid.
Even after that trade, the Bruins never saw the door as fully closed with Marchand. But they never got the opportunity to formally discuss a contract again, as he re-signed with the Panthers before reaching free agency on July 1.
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The Panthers arrived in town early on the final leg of a five-game trip. On Sunday night, Marchand went to dinner with a group that included several former teammates: Patrice Bergeron, Zdeno Chara, Tuukka Rask and Adam McQuaid. On who fronted the bill, Marchand quipped: «They bullied me. I did.»
Marchand’s more recent teammates, such as McAvoy, were dialed in to his playoff run with the Panthers. McAvoy is superstitious, so because he didn’t text Marchand early in the playoffs, he held off reaching out until the series was over.
«We were able to connect right away after they won, and I told him it was just really inspiring watching him play,» McAvoy said. «He’s just a big-time player. It’s so fun to see a guy who has been with you, and to see the fire he still has. It allowed me to sort of reset in my head a little bit, and find that fire again.»
David Pastrnak are learning how to take on a bigger role, while still staying authentic to themselves and the tradition before them. It’s one of the ways Marchand’s legacy still lives with the team.
«For a long time in Boston, you had Bergy, Z, and Marshy, and they were this perfect triangle of guys that leaned on each other, that each had different personalities,» McAvoy said. «You can talk forever about how amazing they are as individuals, how big their hearts are, how much they care for everyone around them. That’s certainly one of the pillars: caring for your teammate, and going above and beyond for them. Those three guys put that on display every day, making it fun to come to the rink. That was something they fostered there — that made it great to be a Bruin.»
