For 10 years, Bruins veteran gets asked same question: What’s Brad Marchand really like?

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For 10 years, Bruins veteran gets asked same question: What’s Brad Marchand really like?

Matt Vautour · MassLive

Tue, Oct 21, 2025 ·

3 min read

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BOSTON — Throughout his 10-year NHL career, people have always wanted to ask Sean Kuraly about Brad Marchand .

His Columbus Blue Jackets teammates, his friends, fans — they’ve all been curious about the polarizing long-time Bruins star

“Of all the people I’ve played with, he definitely is, the most asked-about player,” Kuraly said after Bruins ’ morning skate on Tuesday.

Kuraly, who returned to the Bruins as a free agent this summer, played with Marchand in Boston for five seasons (2016-21), a stretch that included some of the peak of Marchand’s face-licking, suspension-earning, opponent-chirping notoriety.

When he signed with Columbus in 2021, the Blue Jackets were curious. His answer has been consistent as the questions.

“The response was always: If he was on your team, you’d love him. Anyone who has been Marchy’s teammate knows that,” Kuraly said. “You’re lucky to be his teammate. It’s no fun to play against him.”

It’s not clear when they asked, what they expected Kuraly’s answer to be, but it wasn’t that.

“Most people seemed surprised when I said that,” Kuraly said. “As fierce a competitor as he is, that same fire drives him to help his teammates. He wants to win at all costs. He’s doing every thing he can to help his teammates and make his teammates feel better and play better and at the end of the day come out on top.”

After 1,090 games in a Boston uniform, Marchand was dealt to Florida at the trade deadline in March when he and Bruins management couldn’t agree on salary and term. He played a big part of the Panthers winning their second straight Stanley Cup.

Marchand will be back in Boston on Tuesday as the Bruins host the Panthers at TD Garden. He was with Florida when they visited right after the deadline last year, but he was injured and didn’t play. This will be his first time back in the lineup.

Kuraly said even though Marchand will be on the other side Tuesday his influence is still being felt in the Bruins dressing roon.

“No doubt. He’s left a lasting mark in this locker room. Unfortunately we have to play against him for now,” he said. “But he’s changed a lot of people’s careers and trajectories. We were definitely lucky to be teammates with Marchy.”

If his old teammates took one applicable lesson from Marchand for Tuesday night’s game, it would be a simple one.

“He’s the first one to say there’s no friends on the ice,” Kuraly said. “We’ll play him just as hard as anybody else. He’ll do the same.”

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