BOSTON — The Boston Bruins pulled the curtain closed on the Original Six franchise’s most successful era since Bobby Orr hung two Stanley Cup banners in the old Garden.
The Bruins sent captain Brad Marchand, the last remaining member of their 2011 NHL championship team, to the Florida Panthers at the trade deadline on Friday in a purge of a roster that has followed unprecedented regular-season success with, mostly, playoff disappointment.
Boston will receive a second-round draft pick for Marchand that could become a first-rounder if the Panthers win two rounds in the playoffs and he plays in 50% of their postseason games. The Bruins also shipped forward Justin Brazeau to Minnesota, forward Charlie Coyle to Colorado, forward Marc McLaughlin to New Jersey and defenseman Brandon Carlo to Toronto. Forward Trent Frederic was traded to Edmonton earlier in the week, signaling the start of the Boston fire sale.
“We didn’t burn it down. We have a lot of guys. Now we have to do a better job of building around it and charting a course that says we’re back,” Bruins general manager Don Sweeney told reporters on Friday night. “We’re trying to put things in a position where we’re right back in a competitive situation next year.”
Marchand was a brash rookie when he teamed with Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci to win it all in 2011. They would return to the finals again two years later.
And while the success continued, it was only in the regular season: Heading into this year, Boston had earned at least 100 points in each of the last six non-pandemic seasons, but its only extended playoff run was a trip to the 2019 Cup final.
That cost coach Bruce Cassidy his job just three years after playing for the Cup. Jim Montgomery replaced him and in his first year the Bruins finished with NHL records of 65 wins and 135 points but lost in the first round to Florida; after a second-round exit in 2024 and an 8-9-3 start this season, Montgomery was also fired.
“We’ve had a good run. We didn’t complete the ultimate goal. We were close,” Sweeney said. “We thought we had a very good team a few years ago, and didn’t get it done. If I could replicate that team …. I’d do it.”
A four-time All-Star who excelled at irritating opponents with his face-licking and other antics, Marchand has 422 goals and 554 assists in 16 NHL seasons, all of them in Boston. He ends up fourth on the Bruins’ all-time list for goals, sixth for assists, first in short-handed goals and first in overtime goals, first in playoff goals and second in playoff points; he is fourth in team history with 1,090 games, one spot ahead of Sweeney.
Marchand has 21 goals and 26 assists this season but has not played since leaving the Bruins’ March 1 game against Pittsburgh with an unspecified upper body injury. Sweeney said Marchand is expected to be out for another 3-4 weeks.
Marchand, 36, will earn $6.125 million this year and is due to become a free agent after the season.
“We’ve been trying to sign Brad all year long. We had a gap there,” Sweeney said. “He’s beloved here. I would never close the door.”
Marchand, who was elevated to captain after Bergeron retired in 2023, is the fifth Bruins captain to be traded, with Ray Bourque and Joe Thornton being the most recent. No one will wear the captain’s “C” for the rest of the season, Sweeney said.
Here is what else the Bruins came away with for their rebuild:
—Forwards Casey Mittelstadt and William Zellers and a 2025 second-round draft pick from the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for Coyle and a 2026 fifth-round draft pick.
—Defenseman Henri Jokiharju from the Sabres in exchange for a 2026 fourth-round draft pick.
—Defenseman Daniil Misyul from the New Jersey Devils in exchange for McLaughlin.
—Forwards Marat Khusnutdinov and Jakub Lauko and a 2026 sixth-round pick for Brazeau.
—Forward prospect Fraser Minten and a 2026 first-round pick for Carlo.
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