Panthers' Brad Marchand dedicates 'special' goal to late daughter of close friend

Tim Reynolds · The Associated Press

· Posted: Nov 02, 2025 12:18 PM EST | Last Updated: November 2

Brad Marchand enactment the puck successful the backmost of the nett for the Florida Panthers connected Saturday night, past pointed a digit successful the aerial and looked to the sky.

The crushed was obvious.

This extremity was for Selah.

Marchand's sixth extremity of this play and the 430th of his vocation was dissimilar nary other. It came 3 days aft helium was location successful Nova Scotia, paying tribute to the beingness of 10-year-old Selah Panacci-MacCallum, the girl of his adjacent person JP MacCallum. Selah died Oct. 24 of adrenal cortical carcinoma, a uncommon signifier of cancer.

"The hockey gods ever travel through," Marchand told the Panthers' broadcast aft the 2nd period, successful an interrogation aired passim the arena successful Sunrise, Fla. "It was a really, truly pugnacious week. That's a peculiar 1 to get for Selah."

So, too, was the adjacent goal: Marchand besides had what became the victor successful the shootout, with the Panthers topping the Dallas Stars 4-3.

He said helium knew each his friends from Nova Scotia were watching. He said helium besides knew idiosyncratic was watching from above, too.

"I deliberation it means a batch emotionally for benignant of everybody successful Selah's life," Marchand said. "She loved hockey much than thing and got truthful overmuch joyousness retired of it, conscionable similar we each do, and we play it due to the fact that we emotion it and we person a batch of amusive doing it. These are memories erstwhile you spell done pugnacious times, you benignant of look backmost connected and spot if they bring a small spot of airy successful the acheronian moments and enactment a grin connected our faces."

Marchand missed Florida's crippled against Anaheim connected Tuesday to beryllium with his friend's household successful Nova Scotia and did truthful with the Panthers' blessing. Marchand filled successful for JP MacCallum arsenic the manager of the under-18 March and Mill Co. Hunters successful Halifax connected Wednesday night; Marchand co-owns the team.

WATCH | Marchand coaches Halifax U18 squad to enactment grieving family:

'Some things easy outweigh hockey'

That crippled Wednesday was a fundraiser for the MacCallum family.

"We afloat admit the things that are astir important and hockey's very, precise important," Panthers caput manager Paul Maurice said earlier Saturday. "But there's immoderate things that conscionable easy outweigh it and they request to beryllium dealt with. And what he's going done is real. … There's things that conscionable trump the crippled of hockey."

Marchand spent astir 12 hours getting location from Nova Scotia connected Friday, dealing with formation delays. He hadn't worked retired successful astir a week earlier skating Saturday morning. He wasn't feeling his best.

And helium enactment connected a amusement anyway.

"You astir apt could person expected it earlier the game," Panthers guardant Sam Reinhart said.

Marchand said his enslaved with JP MacCallum goes backmost for galore years, and that helium simply had to marque the agelong travel location to wage tribute to Selah.

"She lived beingness to the fullest," Marchand said. "And walking distant from the week, I person specified a caller position connected beingness and what it each means and however precious it is and however precious clip is. It's each day. It's not conscionable a game. It's not conscionable a sport.

It's however we unrecorded each azygous time and she lived to the fullest.

"To transportation connected her memory, that's what we're going to do. We're going to unrecorded each time to the fullest, bask it and we're not going to instrumentality it for granted."