Coach Jim Montgomery, who confirmed that Marchand would be back in the lineup in his familiar spot alongside Patrice Bergeron and Jake DeBrusk, admitted to being quite eager to coach a player with Marchand's abilities.
"I know myself as a coach, I'm excited to coach him and see the energy and the work ethic that he's going to bring to the Bruins tonight," said Montgomery.
Boston's bench boss also reiterated that the team's doctors and medical staff, including manager of player rehabilitation Scott Waugh, are "extremely comfortable" with how Marchand progressed and his fitness to be back in the lineup on Thursday night.
"All along we have our own internal timelines and they're ahead of where they were because of the terrific work our medical staff has done and you've got to give Marchy a lot of credit with how hard he's pursued his rehab," said Montgomery. "Everybody's comfortable, the doctors are comfortable, Scotty Waugh, who has done a terrific job in charge of his rehab, is extremely comfortable.
"We were just checking all the boxes [and] all the boxes have been checked. This was the earliest that everybody was comfortable - except for Brad Marchand. He wanted to play earlier. But we're really confident that everything is going to go well for him as a player."
The Bruins, however, will still be cautious with Marchand, who will not travel to Columbus for the second end of Boston's back-to-back on Friday night. The plan will give Marchand four days to recover and prepare for the first game of the B's road trip next Tuesday night in Pittsburgh.
"He is not going to play in Columbus because we don't want him traveling,' said Montgomery. "We're not going to play him in back-to-back nights. We're going to allow him to recover and also we've got a favorable schedule for him to recover not playing for four days."
Montgomery added that he is aiming to keep Marchand around 16-17 minutes of ice time against the Red Wings, while also being flexible based on how the game is transpiring.
"I think it's gonna be more the flow of the game," said Montgomery. "Ideally, I want to keep him to 16-17 minutes. If all four lines are going, that makes it easy. That's just the flow of the game. There's no restrictions on how many minutes he can play, it's just his hockey conditioning level is gonna be the biggest factor."
Marchand acknowledged there is likely to be some rust in his game that he'll have to work through in the early going.
"It's tough because it's a regular season game, it's not exhibition clearly," said Marchand. "You normally have three or four of those to get ready for the season where you go in and you feel it out and make sure you're where you want to be, it's ok to make some mistakes.
"But that's not the case tonight. It's about making sure you go in and I'm not a liability out there and not getting the guys' way. They're rolling and feeling good. The main thing is just keeping it simple and keeping shifts short, not trying to do too much or be too fancy."
