For Boston Bruins forward Brad Marchand, this offseason has been less about training and more about rehabbing.
The 27-year-old had surgery to repair tendons in his right elbow and is just recently returning to training and getting his strength back up.
"It just started feeling better around the start of August," Marchand told NHL.com's Matt Kalman. "So it was tough. I couldn't do a whole lot of upper-body workouts for the first three months off. The last month has been good, though. It's come around and it's feeling pretty good. But I'm still in the rehab process. So I'm trying to get my strength back up. It's tough to train on one side of your body. You don't want to get too out of whack when you do that, so now I'm just trying to get my strength back up and hopefully feel good for the season."
The injury was one that has plagued Marchand since the start of the 2014 postseason and at times was so severe that he struggled just to hold a stick in his hand.
"There were days where I couldn't even hold my stick," Marchand said. "It was always tough to shoot. There'd be times throughout the year where it was good. But when it was bad it was tough to even … like I wasn't shooting in practice and stuff like that. So it definitely affected my game a bit. So it was good to get it done."
Despite the nagging injury, Marchand still managed to find the back of the net 24 times, adding 18 assists in 77 games.
