Marchand embracing new rat tradition with Panthers

FORT LAUDERDALE -- Maybe Brad Marchand really does belong with the Florida Panthers because, you know, of the rats.

"Yeah, they just see all my family out there on the ice and want us to be together," Marchand said.

That was Marchand cracking a joke. If you know the backstory, you'll appreciate the 37-year-old's humor. If you don't, here's the history lesson.

Marchand has long been affectionately known as a rat on the ice. Well, that affection really is dependent on the opponent and who you ask. The moniker, if you will, is used as a description for how the forward plays, for his in-your-face, sometimes-annoying and always-chirping style.

He's been so good at it for so many years that clearly no trap or poison can stop him.

Meanwhile, the rat has long been a fixture at Panthers home games ever since Scott Mellanby killed one in the dressing room at Miami Arena in Florida's home opener for the 1995-96 season. Mellanby then scored a hat trick that became known as the "rat trick."

Panthers fans have been throwing plastic rats on the ice for years, now doing so after the home team wins at Amerant Bank Arena. They even have been doing it at some road games in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Well, Marchand, traded from the Boston Bruins to the Panthers on March 7, now has those plastic rats shot at him one by one by his teammates before leaving the ice following a win, hence the joke that his teammates just wanted him to be together with his family.

His teammates did it again after Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Final on Wednesday, when they were on the road. Some Florida fans smuggled their plastic rats into Lenovo Center and tossed them on the ice following the Panthers' series-clinching 5-3 win that sent them to the Stanley Cup Final for a third straight season.

There will be at least two more opportunities, and maybe a third, to extend the tradition on home ice.

Florida will play the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup Final. The series will open in Edmonton on Wednesday (8 p.m. ET; CBC, TVAS, SN, TNT, truTV, MAX).

"I don't know how it started, but I think the first game he was here we won, we ended up doing it and it's just kind of become a little bit of a thing," Panthers forward Evan Rodrigues said.

Marchand said it was Rodrigues who started it.

"One happened to be right there one time and he started shooting them all at me and then it just kind of kept going," Marchand said.

He said Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk started firing at him too. Then everyone else.

"Those are things that just kind of organically happen sometimes," Marchand said. "We don't overthink it. We just have a little bit of fun there. And yeah, it's just again, small sample size of one of the things that allowed us to have some fun together."

Marchand laughs and cracks jokes, but his teammates aren't holding back on it.

"Yeah, they're shooting to hurt," he said. "[Tkachuk] caught me with one that actually I felt there."

That one was on the road too following a 5-0 win in Game 2 against the Hurricanes.

Because the players and coaches have to go across the ice to leave Carolina's rink, it was the first time Florida coach Paul Maurice witnessed the new post-win tradition.

"I will tell you, they're shooting them as hard as they can," Maurice said. "They're not flipping them at him. There's shrapnel around there. I mean, I didn't have any equipment on, I was just trying to get off the ice. But they're heating them up at him and he's trying to get out of the way."

It's just part of the Panthers' story now as they go for their second straight Stanley Cup championship.

"All of those little stories that happen over the course of the year, they're even way better in the playoffs," Maurice said. "Two years ago, they were giving out a bone and I think it was from a steak that Scott Tinkler, one of our equipment managers, must have ate. He's not a big guy, but he ate like an 80-ounce steak or something and had a bone with it, and the next thing you know it's in the room and that's what they're giving around for player of the game. Those are the really fun stories that are kind of organic. That's the players' time.

"So, now they're ripping the plastic rats off 'Marchy.' It's funny as hell."