Bruins

Bruins’ Brad Marchand on recovery from hip surgery: ‘I thought I’d feel better now than I do’

"I still have little ways to go before the playoffs.”

Brad Marchand is still on pace for 71 points this season. Karl B DeBlaker / AP

March 8, 2023

It’s been over nine months since Brad Marchand went under the knife for major surgery on both of his hips. Five months later, he was back on the ice for the Boston Bruins.

It was an impressive turnaround for the 34-year-old winger, who has gone out and posted 54 points (19 goals, 35 assists) in 54 games this season.

A point-per-game pace is an impressive stat line for any player, let alone a veteran coming off of such a significant procedure.

But for Marchand, etching one’s name into the scoresheet doesn’t mean that his overall game is back up to his standards.

“I thought I’d feel better now than I do, to be honest with you,” Marchand said Wednesday. “I think it’s been great. It’s been really relieving that we have the team we have and we’re as deep as we are, because it definitely takes pressure off. But I thought I’d be kind of where I was last year, right now. And I don’t necessarily feel like that. So I still have little ways to go before the playoffs.”

Marchand has no regrets about opting for the procedure on both of his hips shortly after the Bruins’ 2021-22 campaign ended.

Even though his initial recovery timeline mapped out a return around Thanksgiving (he beat that projection by a month), Marchand’s career could have been in jeopardy if he didn’t bite the bullet on the operation.

Earlier this season, Marchand acknowledged that he might have needed hip replacement surgery within a couple of years if he didn’t take his doctors’ advice back in May.

“Surgery-wise, it was by far the best decision I made for the longevity of my career,” Marchand said at Warrior Ice Arena. “So I’m happy with how it went. And obviously, the best-case scenario happened, where we have a really good team. And like I said, it takes a lot of the pressure off, but I thought it’d be a little easier to get back to where I was last year than kind of what it’s been.”

Since returning to the B’s lineup, Marchand has been as advertised as Boston’s on-ice spark plug and dependable playmaker on Patrice Bergeron’s line. Had he not missed time, Marchand would be on pace for his sixth season with 80+ points.

But for Marchand, the real barometer for his on-ice performance lies more in his conditioning. And while the stats may not reflect it, the star forward believes he has much more to give.

“I don’t really care about the points. It’s more about how I play,” Marchand said. “Like, if I feel like I had a really good game and I don’t have points, then I’m happy. If I have three points and I have a bad game, I’m not happy.

So points I think are just more of a reflection of how good of a team we have. And everyone’s having success this year. So it’s nice, but I like to feel like I’m in control of the play when I’m on the ice and haven’t really felt like that this year [as] I have in the last six or seven years.”

Jim Montgomery isn’t exactly surprised that Marchand was self-critical of his play so far this season, even if he’s provided a major impact on the ice.

“He’s a star in the league,” Montgomery said of Marchand. “I mean, when you’ve been one of, if not the best left winger in the game for the past seven years … you expect a lot of yourself, you hold yourself to a high standard. And I think it’s the same thing.

“He’s kind of a microcosm of our team, right? He expects a lot from himself. Our team expects a lot from ourselves. And his individual success he knows helps drive the team’s success. So I think it’s just one of those things where he’s been accustomed to 90 to 100 points a season here for a long time. And that’s what he holds himself accountable to. You add on that he kills penalties, he brings energy, he brings nastiness, he brings all those elements to what the Boston Bruins are.”