Boston Bruins winger Brad Marchand, who was supposed to be out until Thanksgiving after double hip surgery, will instead make his season debut Thursday night against the Detroit Red Wings.
Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said Marchand will assume his spot on the first line with Patrice Bergeron and Jake DeBrusk. Montgomery hopes to keep Marchand to 16-17 minutes on ice against the Red Wings.
Marchand, 34, underwent hip arthrosocopy and labral repair on both of his hips in late May, and the Bruins described his expected recovery time as six months.
“As soon as it came up that I was gonna have surgery, they told me it was going to be end of November,” Marchand told reporters Thursday. “I was like, ‘It’s not going to be the end of November. We’re gonna see what we can do.’
“We had this date circled on the calendar months ago.”
Montgomery said Wednesday that Marchand was ahead of schedule and that he hoped to get him back in 10-14 days.
“I was a little coy (Wednesday) because we didn’t wanna get ahead of ourselves,” Montgomery said. “We wanted to see how he responded to a good, hard practice (Wednesday).”
Marchand led the Bruins last season with 80 points (32 goals, 48 assists) in 70 games.
The four-time All-Star has 795 career points (351 goals, 444 assists) in 13 seasons, all with the Bruins.
–Field Level Media