At about 11 p.m. on Tuesday night, Brad Marchand could very well be lifting the Stanley Cup over his head down at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Florida.

If in fact the Florida Panthers are able to finish off the Edmonton Oilers in Game 6 of the Cup final, it should come as no surprise to the Bruins’ fans or GM Don Sweeney, who dealt the former Bruin captain to the defending champions with the idea that he’d have a good chance of winning another ring. Sweeney did Marchand a well-deserved solid.

But what is surprising is that Marchand has the Panthers on the cusp of winning another Cup not as just complementary piece on a great team, but as part of the main course. He’s got 10 goals (including three game-winners) and 10 assists and he’s tied with linemate Anton Lundell for the lead in playoff plus/minus at plus-18 (spare me your quibbles with the stat, analytics-heads).

Marchand bet on himself and he’s winning.

At the trade deadline, the B’s made him an offer that was believed to be in the range of three years at $6 million per season. Marchand felt he was worth more and, with the risk of him walking at the end of the season for nothing, Sweeney did what he had to do. Limited to the very elite teams as trade partners because Marchand was injured at the time and, at the same time, wanting to comply with the wishes of a truly great Bruin, Sweeney sent Marchand where he wanted to go.

The feeling here at the time, admittedly, was that Marchand might have left some money on the table by turning down the B’s offer. He was still a good player. Even after getting traded and playing just 61 games with the B’s, his 47-point total was tied for third in team scoring.

But he did look like he was losing a step. The whirling-dervish plays that he routinely pulled off as a 26-year-old were not being completed as a 36-year-old. You could chalk that up to not playing with linemates of similar skill while with the Bruins, but his play for Team Canada in the 4 Nations Faceoff was just OK. As a no-frills third-liner, he did the job. But there was little to make you think that there was going to be a renaissance of the impactful offensive force Marchand had been in been in past seasons.

So when the team’s fate as a DNQ became too obvious to ignore, Sweeney started the necessary job of selling off pieces, first Trent Frederic, then Justin Brazeau and finally the deadline day everything-thing-must-go sale of Marchand, Charlie Coyle and Brandon Carlo. For Marchand, they eked out what would be a first-rounder, albeit a top-10 protected one in 2027.

Could Sweeney have gotten more for a guy whose No. 63 will one day be in the rafters? In a different scenario, sure. But not within parameters — the injury, the player’s wishes — with which the GM was dealing.

From the outset, it was clear the Panthers would be the winners of the deal, even if Marchand was just the player he’d been with the B’s. That was the case when the B’s acquired Taylor Hall and Curtis Lazar for a mere second-rounder and Andes Bjork, a prospect that never panned out. Hall had control over where he wanted to go, and that was Boston. When the seller’s options are limited, the buyer usually wins.

But as a bonus for the Panthers, Marchand has turned back the clock. He started slowly in his new uniform, recording just two goals with two assists in 10 regular season games for the Cats. But free of the weight of trying to lead a team that seemed to be going in several different directions at once, Marchand gained momentum as a Panther in the playoffs. Instead of trying to force plays to the net, he would make more simple choices, flipping the puck deep or on net when the play wasn’t there, gaining chemistry with new linemates Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen.

Slowly but surely, Marchand regained his spark, possessing the puck more in the offensive zone. His second goal in Game 5 in Edmonton was vintage Marchand. He pounced on a turnover at his own blue line, dashed through the neutral zone with it and then pretzeled defenseman Jake Walman before tucking it between Calvin Pickard’s pads.

He’s also brought something else to the table. Marchand has dazzled the press covering the playoffs, whether it’s talking about his love for Dairy Queen or his more intriguing narrative of where he’s been and where he may be going. That may seem like a small thing, but it is surely appreciated by his Florida teammates who are now on their third consecutive grueling trip to the final. Marchand similarly ran cover for his Canadian teammates at 4 Nations.

Instead of leaving money on the table, it looks like Marchand has put himself in position to cash in.

Back here in Boston, meanwhile, the predictable why-can’t-we-get-players-like-that lament (stick tap to Bob Lobel) is getting louder. And the pressure on Sweeney to turn that draft capital he acquired into something more tangible in this organizational reboot only grows. …

As expected, the Bruins will be represented at the Winter Olympics in Milan. As the national teams announced the first six members of their respective lineups on Monday, Charlie McAvoy was named to Team USA while David Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha were named to Team Czechia.

Neither Elias nor Hampus Lindholm were named to Team Sweden yet, though it would be surprising if they weren’t on the final roster.

Marchand, among the first six players named to Canada’s 4 Nations roster, was not yet named but is making his case for inclusion. B’s prospect Dans Locmelis is also a possibility for Team Latvia.