The unlikely connection between Brad Marchand, Corey Perry and 2 Stanley Cup titles

New York Times

5 hours ago

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — This looks like it could be a Stanley Cup Final for the ages.
In a series that boasts some of hockey's brightest stars, the first two games between the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers have featured spectacular plays, 16 goals, highlight-reel saves, mammoth hits, post-whistle truculence, multiple lead changes, late-game comebacks and consecutive overtimes.
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It could be 2-0 either way. It's appropriately 1-1 with Game 3 Monday night in South Florida.
But in a championship round that's showcasing stars such as 'McJesus' and Leon on Edmonton's side and 'Sasha,' 'Chuckie' and 'Swaggy' on Florida's side, leave it to old guys — 'The Worm' and 'The Rat' — to steal the headlines two games in.
Corey Perry is 40 years old and a Stanley Cup Final veteran. The 2007 Stanley Cup champion is in his fifth final in the past six years, and Friday night, during a 5-4 double overtime loss, he forced the extra sessions by scoring the latest tying goal (17.8 seconds left) in Stanley Cup Final history.
Brad Marchand is 37 years old and in his fourth Stanley Cup Final. The 2011 Stanley Cup champion followed his power-play goal in Game 1 with his second career Stanley Cup Final short-handed goal exactly 14 years to the day after his first, and then became the fourth-oldest player in NHL history to score an overtime goal in a final after Anton Lundell sprung him on another breakaway.
VIDEO!
Inside the @flapanthers radio booth in Edmonton for Brad Marchand's Game 2 double-OT winner: pic.twitter.com/sAFYzqbNUF
— Doug Plagens (@DougPlagens) June 7, 2025
The playoff overtime winner was Marchand's fifth of his career, tying him with Perry and others for third all time behind Joe Sakic's NHL-record eight and Maurice Richard's six.
Marchand's first goal in Game 2 was his ninth career Stanley Cup Final goal. That passed Perry for first among active players … until Perry once again tied Marchand late with his ninth.
So naturally, Marchand would leapfrog Perry again in double OT with his 10th. And, incidentally, Marchand became the third player in the past decade to score a game winner in the Stanley Cup Final at age 37 or older. One of the other two? Perry in Game 5 of last year's Stanley Cup Final against Florida.
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'We're old kids living our lifelong dreams,' Marchand said when asked before the season how he and Perry continue to defy Father Time.
'It's pretty amazing I can still be doing this at my age and have such an important role on a team like this,' Perry said Friday.
Well, thousands of miles away in Greenville, S.C., another old kid, 47-year-old Shawn Thornton — the former longtime NHL enforcer and current Panthers chief revenue officer — was golfing in the BMW Charity Pro-Am event on the Korn Ferry Tour and getting a kick out of watching these two likely future Hall of Famers go mano a mano.
Eighteen years ago, Thornton won the Stanley Cup as Perry's teammate in Anaheim when Perry was just 22.
Fourteen years ago, Thornton won the Stanley Cup as Marchand's teammate in Boston when Marchand was just 23.
Not only was Thornton temporary linemates with both, he's also the only player to have won Cups with both and never could have imagined that eons later, long after he retired from hockey and got into the business side of the Panthers, that both Perry and Marchand would still be making such impacts on their teams in another Stanley Cup Final so late in their careers.
'I don't feel that old,' Thornton said, laughing. 'I will say, I never would've counted them out, but you don't expect this. There's only a few guys that get to play until they're 40, but to see them still playing at such a high level and coming through in such big moments, I'm not surprised. They both kept me in the NHL.'
Thornton started the 2006-07 season playing with the Portland Pirates. He had played roughly 600 AHL games and only 31 in the NHL with the Chicago Blackhawks when he got to Anaheim at age 29. But despite being older, because that was really the first year he spent the majority of a season in the NHL, he was treated like young guys such as Perry and Ryan Getzlaf.
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In fact, he got put on their line.
'I played with Getz and Perrs for eight or nine games, and then they sent me back down, then called me back two weeks later and played me with Getz and Perrs again,' Thornton recalled. 'They were so good. I had four or five points playing with those two guys, had a couple fights and they really helped me stay in Anaheim because if I didn't play well with them, they would have had to put me on waivers and I might've got picked up.
'Finally, after I'd say 10 or 11 games, they put me with Dustin Penner and Todd Marchant, and Perrs and Getz had a rotating crew through there with George Parros, Ryan Shannon and a few other guys.'
Thornton, who played 705 NHL games, would never play another minor-league game after that season.
'He kind of protected us,' Perry said. 'We could pretty much have our way out there and he was behind us all the time. He instilled a lot of good qualities in our game.'
Weeks after winning the Cup with Perry in Anaheim, Thornton signed as a free agent with the Bruins. Three years later, Marchand arrived on the scene after playing 20 games the year before. In October 2010, Thornton was linemates with Marchand during an exhibition game in Belfast, Ireland. Together with Gregory Campbell, who coincidentally today is one of the Panthers' assistant GMs, Marchand-Campbell-Thornton became the original 'Merlot Line' because of the color of their practice sweaters.
That changed when the Bruins acquired Daniel Paille from the Buffalo Sabres. Paille started out by playing with Patrice Bergeron but would eventually take Marchand's spot on the 'Merlot Line.'
'They swapped Paille and Marshy, and Marshy never looked back,' Thornton said. 'Selfishly, that year was my only year I ever had 10 goals, 10 assists, and I think a bunch of those came playing with Marshy in our 20-something games together. He was so competitive, so hard on the puck, such an agitator, so physical, not afraid — like, zero fear in him. And then the skill level and the shot and the release was second to none.'
Thornton suddenly laughed: 'I was surprised he was on my line for that long, to be completely honest.'
Thornton says the common trait between Perry and Marchand that has likely led to such longevity is the fearlessness they each have possessed when it comes to playing in the hard areas of the game.
'Perrs was always super skilled, super gritty, get in the dirty areas, not afraid to take punishment to score a goal, and it paid off for him,' Thornton said. 'But I think the way he's changed his game and adjusted and accepted new roles over the years is impressive.'
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With Zach Hyman injured, Perry, this late in his career, is playing on the Oilers' top line with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Connor McDavid. But even when the Oilers opt to unite McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, Perry has remained on the line. He's also played on the top power play off and on in the playoffs.
COREY PERRY TIES UP GAME 2 WITH SECONDS TO SPARE 🥶
WE'RE HEADED TO OVERTIME 👀 pic.twitter.com/IDpbzOek4l
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) June 7, 2025
Similarly, Marchand has accepted his role on Florida playing on the second power-play unit and the third line with young two-way studs Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen. And he's still a short-handed star.
Marchand's two goals Friday night marked the ninth time in his career that he's scored multiple goals in a playoff game. It was his second time in a final, the other coming in 2011 in Game 7 when he beat Roberto Luongo, who just so happens to be back with the Panthers as special adviser to general manager Bill Zito.
After Friday's game, the always-humorous Luongo posted on X, 'Favorite player of all time.'
Because he's on the business side of the Panthers, Thornton doesn't get hockey ops scoops even though his former linemate, Campbell, is one of Zito's right-hand men. In fact, on trade deadline day back in March, Thornton was golfing with a couple of clients who asked him if there was any chance the Panthers could trade for Marchand later in the day.
'I'm like, 'I can't see him leaving the Bruins,'' Thornton said. 'At 3 o'clock, I was like, 'I'm wrong.' I called Marshy and said, 'You're coming to my team and you can't give me a heads-up?' He said, 'It happened pretty quickly.' So I wasn't in the loop on it.'
Thornton hasn't talked to Perry in a long time because he played so briefly with him. But he became close friends with Marchand and calls him the 'ultimate teammate.'
'I would say to him some nights, 'You're 6-(foot)-8 tonight, do whatever you want,'' Thornton said. 'I mean, he always plays that way, but he knew I had his back. He was so respectful of the job that some of us fighters had to do. But there were some nights we were playing somebody that was 6-8, 270 pounds and I wasn't feeling the best.
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'I'd go, 'Marshy, can you just be 5-8 tonight?' Those would be the nights he'd just play hockey and not be the pest he was so I wouldn't have to protect him. So he was great. We sat close to each other in the locker room. I can't say enough about him and how he's grown into the leader that he is and how he's become the family man he's become. He's an unbelievable human being.'
Late in Thornton's playing career, he started doing his own deals and leveraged his image to the point that the last three or four years of his playing career he didn't touch his paycheck. He always knew he wanted to get into the business side of hockey, not the hockey ops or coaching side.
'I always had a general curiosity about the business side, and I was pretty involved on the business side of things with every organization, whether it was a foundation, community relations,' he said. 'I used to sit with sponsorships and ticket ops and ticket salespeople and just had to pick their brain on how things work.
'When I got to the Panthers, our CEO, Matt Caldwell, asked me questions about what I had seen in successful organizations and unsuccessful organizations I had played in. My answers were business directives and not, 'Oh, we need better sushi in the player lounge.' And I started on the business side here three weeks after I played my last game.'
As chief revenue officer, Thornton oversees the Panthers' ticket sales and service, all marketing partnerships and the Panthers Foundation and community team. Thornton didn't go to college or business school. He's learned on the fly, so to speak.
'In jujitsu terms, I was a blue belt, so I was just dangerous enough, but definitely not a black belt on the business side,' he said.
These days, Thornton watches all road games, but at home games, he's running around meeting with clients and business partners.
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But he's sure enjoyed watching his old linemates battle it out in this series. And he especially can't get over Marchand, who is second on the Panthers in the playoffs with seven goals and tied for second with 17 points in 19 games.
'He seems that he's been getting better every series, which isn't surprising, either, because he keeps turning it up a level to match wherever he's been,' Thornton said. 'On the outside looking in, he's been an unbelievable pickup for our team. I tip my cap to (Zito) that he was able to pull that one off last minute at the deadline.'
(Top photos: Harry How and Jim McIsaac / Getty Images)