If anyone thought that Brad Marchand’s recent two-game suspension meant altering his game, then they would surely be mistaken.

On Wednesday night, Marchand returned to the lineup after serving his recent ban for slew footing Rangers forward Derick Brassard one week ago today. He set his tone for the night on the very first shift against the Colorado Avalanche delivering a couple of hits and setting up some scoring chances for his fellow linemates Patrice Bergeron and Reilly Smith.

The tempo Marchand set for himself paid dividends in the third period when he put the Black and Gold ahead 2-1 as his wrist shot got past Avs goalie Semyon Varlamov. That did not hold up, however, as the B’s ran out of gas – allowing Ryan O’Reilly to tie the game with 1:45 left. Colorado outplayed Boston in the 5-minute overtime and eventually finished off the 3-2 win in a shootout with last year’s Calder Trophy winner Nathan McKinnon scoring the only goal in the glorified skills competition.

Marchand finished the night with a goal (his team leading 13th of the season), two penalty minutes and five hits in 17:49 of ice time. Despite his solid night, he was still a little disappointed with the end result.

“Yeah, it’s definitely disappointing, considering we were up with a couple minutes left,” Marchand told the press following the loss. “We did get a point. It could be worse, we couldn’t have gotten any.”

In the two games without Marchand, the Black and Gold went 1-1. Daniel Paille filled in at Marchand’s spot at left wing with Bergeron and Smith on the second line during that span. Jordan Caron was inserted into the lineup to fill Paille’s spot on the fourth line with Gregory Campbell and Craig Cunningham.

With those new lines, the chemistry wasn’t as crisp, but the Bruins did manage to get two of a possible four points without Marchand. They fell 3-1 to Columbus in the first game of Marchand’s suspension, but bounced back nicely in Dallas less than 48 hours ago.

Now that Marchand is back, Claude Julien can go back to using his usual forward lines that have brought the B’s some success during the month of January.

“Any time a guy’s out of the lineup, it messes up the dynamics,” Marchand told Fluto Shinzawa of The Boston Globe before the game. “We’re such a good team when everyone’s in the lineup and we can roll four lines. When you make a selfish play, it changes things in the lineup. We lose the first game, it was tough. I’m very happy the guys won last night. Happy to be back at it tonight.”

Marchand will never shy away from playing on the edge. He showed a little bit of that in his first shift against the Avalanche. He’ll continue to play with that edge as long as he’s donning the Spoked B, and there will be times where he does cross that line, like he did when he slew footed Brassard.

It’s why he opponents get frustrated playing against him, but even when he does go over the line, the Black and Gold are surely happy to have Brad Marchand as a teammate.