Game 7 in Stanley Cup Playoffs familiar setting for Marchand, Panthers

TORONTO -- The Toronto Maple Leafs are 0-6 in Game 7s since defeating the Ottawa Senators in the 2004 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals.

In four of those, there has been a familiar team and face -- the Boston Bruins and Brad Marchand.

Marchand will be there again when the Maple Leafs try to end that drought, though this time with the Florida Panthers in Game 7 of their second-round series at Scotiabank Arena on Sunday (7:30 p.m. ET; CBC, TVAS, SN, TNT, truTV, MAX). The winner will face the Carolina Hurricanes in the conference final.

For Marchand, this marks his 13th career Game 7, most among active players and tied for third all-time with Scott Stevens and Patrick Roy. Ahead of Marchand are only two of his longtime Bruins teammates, Patrice Bergeron and Zdeno Chara; each played 14.

“Game 7s, these are the ones you live for,” Marchand said. “You get excited about it. They’re the ones -- you don’t really worry about the pressure. You just worry about enjoying it and having fun. Whether you win or lose, they’re incredible moments.

“You want to give yourself the best opportunity, and to do that you have to be in the moment all night and just be excited about it.”

When coach Paul Maurice was asked about Marchand playing in 13 Game 7s, he let out an “Oh my god.”

“That’s awesome,” said Maurice, who himself is 5-0 in five career Game 7s, including a win against Marchand’s Bruins in 2023. “That’s crazy. I hope what it is, how much he can share and that can rub off on his teammates, who knows? But it’s certainly, as you get older, you will appreciate it. There’s not 13 more – or that would be impressive, to say the least.

“So, that awareness -- we had that going back a couple years, we had Eric Staal in a Game 7 and Kyle Okposo in a Game 7. Those players understand the joy of it, right? Nobody ever in the backyard rink said, ‘Hey, it’s Game 3.’ Or even in the summer, the bases are loaded, it’s bottom of the ninth, always, when you dream about it.”

There’s that joy in Game 7. Freedom.

But it’s in the experience, in having gone through them and experiencing the emotions and the ups and downs, that allows that to flourish. As Panthers teammate Matthew Tkachuk mentioned, “I was more nervous for my first one than the last couple.”

He learned how to handle them, as has Marchand.

“It’s very easy to start thinking about outside noise and pressures and what it means, obviously the game and your future and the fans and all that,” Marchand said. “I think the more times you go through it, you understand the little things within the game and the way you need to focus and prepare, just how you can embrace it instead of worrying about the pressure and all the things that come with it and the media hype around it and all that.”

Marchand’s previous Game 7 was last season -- against the Maple Leafs. The Bruins had been up 3-1 in the first-round series, but Toronto stormed back to force Game 7 at TD Garden in Boston. The game went to overtime before David Pastrnak scored for the Bruins, with assists from Hampus Lindholm and Brandon Carlo, who now plays on the other side from Marchand, with Toronto.

“I just think the more you go through it, the more fun you have in them,” Marchand said. “The difference between winning and losing sometimes doesn’t come down to how you play. It can be a bounce or a call. You obviously want to prepare to put your best game on the ice and take care of every detail, because one detail is enough to win or lose a game, but I mean these are the games that you talk about forever. They’re the moments that if you go on to have a run, that you always look back on, and you talk about the moments within the game that allow you to win.

“The teams that win them and go on to win a Cup, they’re the moments you look back and everyone’s like, you don’t win that, your Cup run is over. How many great teams have lost in a Game 7? How many great teams have won?”

Marchand could have been referring to that first round in 2023, when the Bruins had put together the best regular season in NHL history but lost in Game 7 to the Panthers, who then started a run that didn’t end until a loss in the Stanley Cup Final.

The swing can be that big.

“The difference in the details is pretty incredible how it plays out,” Marchand said. “That’s what the fans love, it’s what us as players love and love to be part of. I’ve said it before, yeah, you can look at it as a pressure situation or you can just look at it as an incredible opportunity to be a hero or to accomplish big things as a group. And whichever one you latch onto, that’s usually the direction you go.

“But if you embrace it and are excited about it and know that you have the ability to do big things in big moments, that’s where big memories are created.”