Brad Marchand tried to contain his emotions midway through the first period Tuesday. He looked up at the scoreboard at TD Garden and watched nearly 16 years of his life flash before his eyes. As it ended, with tears welling in his eyes, the veteran winger received a round of applause from what was his home crowd for his entire NHL career up until eight months ago.

Yes, Marchand’s return to Boston for his first game as an opponent hit him to the core.

“They won’t be able to cheer because I know they don’t like the Panthers very much,” Marchand told reporters with a smile Monday on the eve of the game, “but maybe they’ll like me enough to give me a little ‘yay’ out there.”

During the game, no, they were not cheering for him — and for good reason. Marchand had two primary assists and was his usual all-around presence on the ice in the Florida Panthers’ 4-3 win over the Bruins to cap their five-game road trip. Carter Verhaeghe scored the game-winner with 27 seconds left.

But for those three minutes at the 9:21 mark of the first period, when Marchand’s welcome back video played, they made sure to remind him just how much he was — how much he is — appreciated in Boston.

As each memory played out, and as Marchand got more and more emotional, the crowd got louder, reaching a crescendo at the end.

And the feeling is mutual.

When asked Monday what his favorite part was about his time in Boston, Marchand didn’t hesitate to say the fans.

“The city’s incredible — I’ve lived in a bunch of different areas around here and the city’s incredible, but the fans make it awesome,” Marchand said. “They’re just very unique. Some of the stories and things that I’ve seen fans do — a lot of them aren’t PG rated — in playoff runs and stuff like that, it’s so special and I think so unique to this area.”

Added Panthers coach Paul Maurice in a midgame interview on ESPN: “That was the truth on the ice. Those tears are real. He wears his heart on his sleeve. He’s had so many great moments here, won a Stanley Cup here. He’ll always be a Bruin at heart.”

Marchand was a Bruin lifer, giving everything he had for the team that drafted him in the third round of the 2006 NHL draft while he was with the franchise. He won a Stanley Cup as a rookie in 2011, played in two more Finals in 2013 and 2019 and had 976 career points over 1,090 NHL regular-season games (plus another 157 in 138 playoff contests). Marchand built his reputation as an agitating, scrappy forward who knows how to get under the opponent’s skin while also producing on the scoresheet and was named captain ahead of the 2023-24 season, succeeding Patrice Bergeron for the role.

But with the Bruins falling out of playoff contention early last season with Marchand in a contract year and it looking unlikely that an extension would happen, Boston dealt Marchand to the Panthers — the “only team that I wanted to go to if I was going to be traded,” Marchand said — for a Florida first-round pick.

Marchand settled in with his new team, playing a key role in their run to a second consecutive Stanley Cup and then signing a six-year extension to stay with the Panthers.

“I knew that, if the opportunity presented itself, this is where I would have liked to be just because of the team and the culture that was built here, how deep they were, and the position they were going to be in to compete for a Cup for not just one year but multiple years,” Marchand told the Miami Herald prior to the road trip. “And then, obviously, the living aspect is great, and that’s a bonus, but it’s more the way that the organization is run and where the team’s at right now. They’re extremely competitive and will be for a long time. You want to be part of that, especially when you’re at the tail end.”

While he might be near the tail end of his career, Marchand is still playing at an elite level. He leads the Panthers in assists (five) and points (eight) through seven games this season.

He showed his former team that on Tuesday as he helped Florida (4-4-0) snap its four-game losing streak.

Marchand had a shot on goal five seconds into the game, drew a tripping penalty 33 seconds into the game and tallied the primary assist on Mackie Samoskevich’s goal on the ensuing power play.

He added his second assist midway through the third period, setting Eetu Luostarinen up with a stretch pass that the winger buried on a breakaway with 10:02 left to play.

Boston (3-5-0) tied the game twice in the third period, with Pavel Zacha and Elias Lindholm scoring in a two-minute span to even the game at 2-2 4:46 into the frame and then Morgan Geekie scoring with 1:31 left to play to even the gaem at 3-3 before Verhaeghe sealed the game in the final minute.

A.J. Greer, another former Bruin, also scored 2:01 into the second period on a snap shot from the right circle that pushed Florida’s lead to 2-0.

Goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 28 of 31 shots for his 433rd career win to move within four victories of tying Jacques Plante for ninth all-time in NHL history.

The Panthers return home for a four-game homestand that begins Thursday against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

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