Bruins Lock Up Marchand For 8 More Years With $49M Extension
The Bruins took care of one of their biggest issues today by giving their leading goal scorer an 8 year/$49M contract extension that carries a team-friendly $6.125M cap hit and will keep Brad Marchand in black and gold until he’s 37 years old.
The impish sniper was set to become an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2017 but the Bruins made sure he didn’t even sniff the open market by signing him to a max-length deal. Marchand was all but certain to command north of $7M a year from another team. But he wants to stay in Boston and the Bs ensured that will happen. Per @CraigCustance, the winger also has a full no-move clause for the first five years before a limited no-trade clause begins.
The 28-year-old left-winger is currently skating on the planet’s best line, alongside teammate/hockey god Patrice Bergeron and reigning Conn Smythe winner Sidney Crosby, at the World Cup of Hockey in Toronto. Marchand is second in points in the tourney (behind Crosby) with 3-2–5 totals in seven games and will be looking to add to that this week when the hosers take on the Euros in a best-of-three final.
Prior to last season, the most goals Marchand scored in a season was 28. But he exploded for 37 last year, thanks in large part to his fantastic chemistry with Bergeron. Also, Claude finally giving him some power play time helped as he scored six times with the man advantage. There’s no reason to think he won’t crack 40 this year or the next.
Though he’ll be in his mid-thirties in the latter part of the contract, it’s hardly a stretch to think the pot-stirring goal-potter will still be a productive player. Marchand has been extremely durable and hasn’t missed more than six games in a season since becoming a full-timer (by being smaller, he seems to take less of a beating). So it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he, like his similarly sized future HOF linemate from 2011, is still banging home 20+ goals even as age 40 beckons. Also like Mark Recchi, it’d be nice if Marchand is lifting the Stanley Cup over his head late in his career as well.
Now, if we could just do something about that D…..
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