Franklin, as Marchand and McEvoy thrive like Bruins with similar names, to face Xaverian

FRANKLIN – Marchand and McEvoy will be skating on Loring Arena ice. Bergeron was there 18 months ago. 

A Bruins takeover in Framingham? Not quite.

Boston’s well-known skaters with the NFL lineman numbers (63 and 73) will face the Toronto Maple Leafs Thursday night at TD Garden. Twenty-two miles west, Franklin and Xaverian meet for the first time since 2015 in a boys hockey Division 1 quarterfinal at Loring.

Franklin captain Dylan McEvoy will see plenty of ice time, but don’t look for him on the blue line like his Bruins almost namesake (with just a letter of difference), Charlie McAvoy. The pair don’t even shoot from the same side: Dylan is a lefty.

Logan Marchand, also a Franklin captain, does not create havoc near the net like Brad Marchand; Logan is a defenseman, though his 20 points are by far the most for Panther blue-liners.

Franklin seniors Dylan McEvoy, left, and Logan Marchand hold hockey cards of their Boston Bruins namesakes, Charlie McAvoy and Brad Marchand, after practice at Pirelli Veterans Arena in Franklin on March 4, 2024.

Their games and uniform numbers are different (Logan wears No. 14; Dylan No. 9) and Franklin players don’t wear names on their backs, but the Panther pair enjoy their connection to the B’s.

“I take a bunch of pride in that,” Dylan McEvoy said. “(Charlie McAvoy is) known in the hockey world. And I’m trying to get my name out there and play better.”

“It’s cool to look up to someone with the same last name as you,” Logan Marchand said.

They also enjoy having a little fun when people hear their last names.

“Kids ask me every day, ‘are you related to Charlie McAvoy? Is that your cousin?”’ said Dylan, who has four goals in two playoff games. “I screw around with them, like, ‘yeah that’s my cousin.’”

“It’s exciting because you get asked pretty much every single day if you’re related or not,” Logan said. “It’s fun to mess around with people and say you are, when you’re really not.”

Brad Marchand, who earned his 600th career win in a Bruins uniform on Monday, is known for not just his team-record 11 consecutive 20-goal seasons but for his, let’s say, unpopularity among opponents and fans across North America. He’s been suspended eight times and even the president has weighed in on his salty play when Barack Obama called him a “little ball of hate” when the Bruins visited the White House after winning the Stanley Cup in 2011.

“He gets under people’s skin and gets people off their games,” said Logan Marchand, who will join his brother and Franklin grad Dylan on the Merrimack College club team next year. “He gets in the (penalty) box here and there but he gets his job done. He does what he needs to do.”

Franklin High junior Logan Marchand is surrounded by teammates after he gave the Panthers an overtime victory against St. John’s, in the game at the New England Sports Center in Marlborough, Feb. 20, 2022.

For many years, an accurate pronunciation of Brad’s last name was a bit of a mystery. Was it Mar-SHAND or Mar-SHOND? A 2018 tweet confirmed that the latter is correct. Logan also pronounces his last name Mar-SHOND.

Despite being slotted on the same side of the MIAA bracket in 2016, 2017 and 2022, the Panthers have not played Xaverian in the playoffs since 2015 during the Super 8 tournament, currently on hiatus.

The Panthers were the seventh seed and faced the No. 10 Hawks at Chelmsford Forum. Trailing 2-1 in the final minute and with goalie Ryan Shea pulled for an extra forward, Nick Morris scored with 31.7 seconds left to force overtime. Ryan Spillane put in the rebound of an Alec Borkowski shot 2:36 into the OT to hand Franklin its first win in Super 8 play. The Panthers won the Division 1 state title a year later.

No. 13 seed Franklin (15-8) has played seven of the top 10 seeds for this year’s D1 tournament, including four of the top five, with only No. 4 Xaverian not on the schedule.

Franklin senior Ben Paterson is third in the state with 53 points while the Hawks have four players with exactly 22 points. Thursday’s winner plays the victor of No. 1 St. John’s Prep and No. 8 Hingham, which has the same puck drop (7:30 p.m.) in Stoneham.

“It’s definitely going to be fun,” Logan Marchand said after Monday’s practice at Pirelli Veterans Arena. “Our last game here was packed, so we’re hoping that’s going to follow over to Framingham, too, for a packed night. It should be a fun, hard battle. We know a lot of kids on their team, they know a lot of kids on our team. We haven’t played them in a while. We’re hoping when we get our chance, we can capitalize on it.”

Tim Dumas is a multimedia journalist for the Daily News. He can be reached attdumas@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @TimDumas. 

This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Franklin hockey’s Marchand, McEvoy admire Bruins with similar names