Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

63

Brad Marchand

Boston Bruins Left Wing

A thousand and twenty-nine games, a thousand and fifty-one penalty minutes, and sixty-seven points at thirty-five.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2009-10BOS20011-320000320.011:58
2010-11BOS77212041+255125214914.113:59
2011-12BOS76282755+318751316716.817:37
2012-13BOS45181836+23274259119.816:58
2013-14BOS82252853+366415514916.815:57
2014-15BOS77241842+59522518013.316:54
2015-16BOS77372461+219064625014.818:36
2016-17BOS80394685+188193822617.319:26
2017-18BOS68345185+256381818218.719:43
2018-19BOS793664100+1596103923115.619:37
2019-20BOS70285987+258251518515.119:27
2020-21BOS53294069+264644514320.318:55
2021-22BOS70324880+169772624213.219:15
2022-23BOS73214667+277490418311.518:32
2023-24BOS82293867+27873620714.019:06
2024-25 so far
Career1029401528929+2921051793677261715.318:01

This Season So Far

The 2024-25 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

29 goals and 38 assists in 82 games — 67 points at 19:06 a night, plus-2, with 7 power-play goals, 3 shorthanded goals and 6 game-winners on 207 shots, converting at 14.01 per cent, and 78 penalty minutes. His first season as captain.

50.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,077 minutes, the 58th percentile. His ice went 42-32 against an expectation of 44.89-43.48 — eleven fewer goals conceded than the chances predicted.

The Finesse Game

207 attempts at a median of 28 feet, with 31 per cent from inside 20 and 20 per cent from beyond 40, converting at 14.01 per cent at 35.

The hockey sense is the best on this club and it has been for a decade. He reads a play a beat before it happens, which is why he has 36 shorthanded goals — more than any other player in this edition — and why the production has not fallen away as the legs have.

38 assists and 528 for his career. He works below the goal line, holds the puck until a defenceman commits, and puts it where somebody is about to be.

The Physical Game

5-9 and 180, and he is the hardest man in this book to play against for his size. 1,051 penalty minutes in 1,029 games.

He is an agitator and it is the whole method — he talks, he finishes late, he gets under the skin of men eighty pounds heavier, and he draws the retaliation that puts them in the box instead of him. He crosses the line and he has always known exactly where it is.

He also finishes checks properly and wins pucks on the wall against defencemen, which the reputation obscures.

The Intangibles

Seventy-first overall in 2006 and 1,029 games, 401 goals and 929 points, all of them here, with a Stanley Cup in 2011 and a career plus-292.

He is 36 and took the captaincy in the first season after Bergeron. A club that lost two Hall of Fame centres and finished sixth in the league did it with a 35-year-old winger holding the room, and the sixty-seven points were close to the least of what he contributed.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,077 minutes

Expected goals
50.8%
59th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
49.3%
48th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 42 for, 32 against. Expected: 44.9 and 43.5.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
99th
Numbers
59th

The report ranks him 40 points above where the numbers do. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.

Both bars are percentiles among the 41 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 85 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Usual linemates

2023-24 · 1077 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2023-24

The club
BOS took 49.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.8% — 1.1 above the club he did it on.
The role
First line, 1,077 minutes at five-on-five — 68th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Charlie Coyle45.7%60.1%49.6%
Charlie McAvoy52.5%49.5%51.8%
Hampus Lindholm51.1%50.5%52.5%

45.7% together, 60.1% for him apart and 49.6% for Coyle apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

288 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 30 of them goals. His median goal came from 16 feet. 31% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 20% from beyond forty.