Brad Marchand, from polarizing pest to dominant force

Brad Marchand has been annoying opponents since he entered the NHL in 2009, and he has also grown into a complete hockey player in plain sight. You can hate the act, but you cannot deny the results.

At 37, the 2006 third-round pick, 71st overall, is still driving games, not surviving them. He has 23 goals and 46 points, and he is sitting in Florida's top tier of minutes and touches.

That evolution is why the Olympics piece matters, because Team Canada does not hand out invites for nostalgia. Hockey Canada named him to the Milano Cortina 2026 roster, and it is the kind of validation that changes how even rivals talk about him.
Équipe Canada

The chaos is back in the conversation because of the licking era, and Ryan Callahan finally told the story again on the Cam and Strick podcast. Callahan summed up the moment perfectly, «So he licks me, and I want to kill him.»

Marchand even had his own quote from the Komarov incident that still sounds unreal, «I thought he wanted to cuddle.» That stuff is why his name always carries extra noise, even when he is playing great hockey.

What hit me most, though, is that Callahan said Marchand owned it later, «I apologize. I owe you a couple of beers. I don't know what I was thinking.» Then Callahan fired back, «You owe me more than a couple of beers, my whole tab.»

That is the arc in one exchange, the embarrassing moment, then the grown-up moment. Florida has the grown-up version right now and the season has turned into a weekly challenge of injuries and consistent play.

When the Florida Panthers are healthy, they can play fast and mean with layers. When the lineup is thin, Marchand's detail level becomes a stabilizer, because he keeps shifts honest and pushes the game into winning areas.

The league will always remember the lick, but the Panthers are betting on everything he became after it.