Brad Marchand doesn’t need a Maple Leafs logo on his sweater to get Toronto fans fired up.
The reaction has been baked in for years, and it only got louder after that first-round series two years ago. Boston and Toronto went the distance in the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs, with the Maple Leafs forcing a Game 7 at TD Garden after winning Games 5 and 6. The Bruins still closed it out, 2-1, in overtime after coming back from a third-period deficit.
What stuck with Toronto wasn’t just the loss. It was Marchand’s words right after the series ended on the Sportsnet broadcast. He said Boston had to "just believe'', though it sounded to plenty of Leafs fans like "be leaf.''
Since then, every touch in Toronto has come with boos. Marchand, of course, seems to wear that as a badge of honor.
He also got under Sheldon Keefe’s skin during that playoff run, and the former Leafs coach didn’t hide how he viewed Marchand’s game.
"You gotta recognize he's a world-class player, both in ability and how he plays, in the gamesmanship and everything," Keefe said.
"He gets calls. It's unbelievable, actually, how it goes.
But we gotta play through that, gotta play through that stuff. I don't think there's another player in this series that gets away with taking out [Tyler] Bertuzzi's legs the way that he does.
There's not one other player in the series that gets away with that. But he does.
"It's an art, and he's elite at it."
The relationship only got messier from there. At the March 2025 trade deadline, Bruins general manager Don Sweeney sent Marchand to the Florida Panthers in a stunning move. Marchand then played a major part in knocking out the Maple Leafs in the second round as Florida went on to win its second straight Stanley Cup.
And even when some wondered in the summer of 2025 whether Marchand might end up in Toronto in free agency, he passed on that path and signed to stay with the Panthers for the rest of his career.
So the boos aren’t going anywhere. Marchand will keep hearing them in Toronto, and the results will probably stay the same. For Maple Leafs fans, he’s still villain No. 1, and he’ll likely stay that way long after he reaches the Hockey Hall of Fame.
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