Brad Marchand doing his part in Bruins’ revival

Brad Marchand’s gravitas within the Bruins’ dressing room is such that his leadership is not necessarily tied to his production on the ice.

But it should come as no surprise that the B’s resurgence is coinciding with a spike in the captain’s production. His empty net goal to seal the B’s 3-1 victory over Buffalo Sabres on Saturday stretched his point streak to nine games. Since Joe Sacco took over from Jim Montgomery, Marchand has 9-5-14 totals as the B’s have gone 10-4-1 under Sacco. His 14 goals leads the Bruins.

While David Pastrnak is the B’s most dynamic offensive player, Marchand is still very much a driving force with this team on the ice.

“He’s ultra-competitive,” said Sacco on Sunday before the team’s family Christmas party at the Garden. “He wants to produce. He’s an offensive guy and he wants to produce points. But he also wants the team do well first and foremost and he wants to be a part of the solution helping the team. I’m sure (the early struggles) take a toll on him. But any player offensively when they start scoring, they feel better about themselves.”

For his part, Marchand deflected a bit when asked about his uptick in production.

“It’s nice when you get bounces,” said Marchand, whose longest personal point streak is 13 games set in 2019-20. “I just think our team is getting better bounces now than we were getting at the start of the year. It was just like we couldn’t buy one at the start of the season. It’s nice when you get them and it helps with the confidence and stuff like throughout, so hopefully we continue to get some.”

When he struggled to produce at the start of the season, it wasn’t too much of a shock. He was coming off three separate surgeries, one on his elbow and two more core procedures, and missed part of training camp. But when you add in the fact that he’s also 36 years old, one had to wonder how much father time was gaining on him.

But not only is Marchand back producing, he believes there are better days to come for him down the road with some better health. He’s still waiting on a contract extension from the Bruins, but it was clear that he’s very much forward-thinking when asked if his game was back to where he wanted it to be.

“No, I don’t. I don’t think I’ll get back there till next year. You never catch up after you miss a summer of training. To make up for three or four months of training, it’s just not going to happen during the season,” said Marchand. “You can get back to a pretty high level, but you’re never going to get back to where everyone else is. It’s very difficult to get back to that point throughout the season. The conditioning stuff is obviously much better than where it was to start the year. I was in a lot more pain to start the year than I thought I would be. I was obviously trying to rush back and get back into it. And I knew I was going to have to play through a little bit of pain. But I was much more sore to start the season than I expected to be.

“But, yeah, I think after the season and having a whole summer to train and get back to where I normally am, I think I’ll feel better than this year. But I think timing-wise and my conditioning has gotten better. I do feel better out there and more confident. I think we just do as a group. We’re more in sync now and we have better chemistry than we did at the start of the season. I think now you’re seeing that we have as a group a lot more confidence to make plays and to finish plays, that we’re not getting down on ourselves in the room the way that we were. You’re starting to see a lot of guys playing better now.”

For the team and for Marchand, the clear demarcation line in the season has been the coaching change.

“Obviously when Monty got fired, it was a huge reset that we had to go through. You just didn’t have a choice at that point,” said Marchand. “It’s unfortunate that that had to happen. But at the same time, we started to get bounces and things started to go our way a little more. We’ve had a little more puck luck. But now guys are in a much better spot. I don’t know specifically where it turned. Obviously when Joe took over, things started to go better, but sometimes that’s just how it goes.”…

The Bruins will not be able to glide gently into the Christmas break. The Washington Capitals, whose .719 points percentage was best in the NHL going into Sunday’s game, come into the Garden for a Monday tilt. What’s impressive is much of the that record has been amassed without Alex Ovechkin (leg) in the lineup.

“They’re one of the better teams in the league right now. They’ve been consistent since the start of the season,” said Sacco. “I think it’s a good opportunity for our group. We’ve had a few of these lately here and to see again where we stack up against some of the better teams that are playing a good consistent brand of hockey. Whatever term you want to use, measuring stick or how we stack up, I just it’s an important game. It’s right before our three day break and you want to go into that break feeling good about your game.”

 

 

 

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/nSEq9z4