Brad Marchand's Hot Streak a Big Reason for the Boston Bruins' Recent Turnaround

The Boston Bruins are on their first three-game point-earning streak of the 2014-15 season. Their second-line winger and fifth-year NHL veteran, Brad Marchand, can say the same.

If that comes across as happenstance, consider additional data.

With Tuesday night’s 2-1 overtime win over Florida, the Bruins are 6-0-0 when Marchand contributes a point. When his stick is silent, they are 2-6-0.

With roughly one-sixth of the season over, the sample size has drawn a clear-cut contrast. If Marchand is clicking, it bodes well for Boston. And it has virtually been an if-and-only-if scenario.

Though he is only one man playing the quintessential team game, that impact comes as no surprise considering Boston's recent personnel overhaul. According to Jason Mastrodonato of MassLive.com, Marchand himself acknowledged the importance of every significantly tenured veteran propping up the precedent.

"Every year there are new guys but this year we lost a couple key leaders. ... Now it’s just a lot quieter around the room without those guys. ... We want to bring that energy back and try to a find a way to get that and make the other guys talk more," he said prior to Tuesday's action.

What better way to revamp the vocal cords than to pull the team up when it's down or drawn on the scoreboard?

That exemplary leadership was lacking at the start, but the acclimation process in the wake of those key departures seems to have tapered off.

"I think a lot of it is our veteran players have really taken charge of the situation, and you just have to look at March, for example...he’s picked up his game," head coach Claude Julien told reporters.

Indeed, after managing three points in his first 11 games, Marchand has four goals and two assists in his last three.

Three of those points gave him a hand in an equalizer. The other three have been go-ahead goals, including overtime clinchers against Buffalo last Thursday and the Panthers on Tuesday.

It is hard to believe that both the player and the club were facing the threat of an ever-dropping low point barely a week ago. Last Wednesday, on the eve of the visit to Buffalo, Fluto Shinzawa of The Boston Globe reported that Marchand practiced with the third line.

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At the time, he was coming off his eighth pointless venture in 11 tries the previous night. The team had just dropped to 5-6-0 after blowing a 3-1 lead en route to a 4-3 loss to Minnesota.

On top of the demotion, ESPNBoston.com's Joe McDonald reported that an ambiguous ailment impelled him to withdraw for the balance of day.

Yet by last Thursday’s faceoff, he was back in commission and linking up with Loui Eriksson and Carl Soderberg. Since then, regardless of whom he has worked with, he has clicked in a cluster of key situations, bolstering the win streak.

The Bruins trailed Buffalo twice, but Marchand's goal-assist variety pack allowed them to draw 1-1 and 2-2 knots.

In the ensuing overtime, after an incomplete, on-the-fly line change, Reilly Smith notched the primary assist by setting up the revived striker’s clincher.

Prophetically enough, Matt Kalman of CBS Boston went on to write that the 3-2 Bruins victory “could be a turning point for Marchand. Not only did he produce his second and third goals of the season...It was only the fourth time this season he went an entire game without a penalty.”

As it happens, in the two games since, Marchand has logged nary a nanosecond in the penalty box.

All the while, with Saturday's 4-2 win over Ottawa, the Bruins nudged above the .500 mark for the first time since they claimed the season opener on Oct. 8. Guess who drew first blood on Boston's behalf to set the tone after being reunited with Smith and Patrice Bergeron?

Boston initially trailed the Panthers Tuesday, though only for three minutes and 25 seconds. Perhaps not by coincidence, Julien deployed the Marchand-Bergeron-Smith troika for the faceoff that followed Florida's icebreaker.

They did not make many ripples on that shift, but they did on their next turn.

At the 7:29 mark of the middle frame, Marchand set Bergeron up to draw a 1-1 knot. In turn, he has had a credited role in deleting each of the last three deficits the Bruins have brooked.

Marchand and Bergeron later joined Milan Lucic on the last regulation shift, a move Julien undoubtedly made to tap into Marchand's exemplary hustle in the clutch. During that sequence, defenseman Dougie Hamilton took the last shot at a regulation tiebreaker with 23 seconds left.

In overtime, Hamilton simply delayed and deferred the deciding role to the hot hand. He would pick up the lone assist on Marchand’s strike with 93 seconds to spare in the bonus round.

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That brings him up to five goals and four assists on the season. All five goals have come in a seven-game span and 5-2-0 ride for the team.

That trend began on Oct. 21, ending a combined 191-day drought without a regular-season or postseason goal. Until he broke the ice in that night’s 5-3 win over San Jose, Marchand had not beaten an opposing goaltender since April 13.

It is worth recalling that his arid interim overlapped with a seven-game, second-round playoff loss to Montreal. A lack of offensive polish deserved the brunt of the blame in Boston’s shortcoming.

That makes one wonder what could have been last May if a certain top-sixer had found the twine once or twice.

To magnify Marchand’s importance entering this season, the Bruins tapped into unripe, homegrown talent to replace Jarome Iginla on the first line. Although Seth Griffith has emerged as a pleasant surprise with five points in 10 games, supplementary scoring is a natural must.

With Marchand in his fifth full season with Boston, his presence needs to evolve into the veteran variety. The fact that he has thawed out his long-frostbitten twig, staved off the sin bin and is clicking in the clutch speaks to nothing shy of that.

We have not even gotten around to mentioning that another top-six forward, David Krejci, has been out of the lineup for the last two games.

Again, while he does not play on the same unit, Marchand delivering the goods is one of Boston’s foremost needs for collective reinforcement during such a key absence.

When Krejci and other injured Bruins join back in, Marchand’s next test will be to maintain his momentum. Coming through as he has once there is full health across the lineup can only steer the team back to its characteristic contender’s persona.

He can validate his veteran status by flexing the same urgency that has clearly fueled him since last week’s reassignment to the third line.

His higher-ups can and should ask nothing less of him. Because as last May partially suggested, and as the first month of 2014-15 has plainly proclaimed, Boston’s fortunes are as good as Marchand’s.

As they try to recompense their rancid start to the season, the Bruins must be in pseudo-playoff mode for the foreseeable future. Marchand’s newfound proficiency is an indispensable asset in that regard and could be a crucial individual foundation ahead of the real 2015 playoffs.

Few players personify Boston’s craving for a do-over from their 2013-14 letdown more than Marchand. His role in the club’s recent U-turn is his way of voicing that desire through action.

Unless otherwise indicated, all statistics for this report were found via Bruins.NHL.com.