WILMINGTON — A woeful start and unproductive finish tarnished Bruins forward Brad Marchand last season.

After taking part in an informal practice at Ristuccia Arena for the first time yesterday, Marchand explained that he adjusted his offseason workouts to guard against a repeat of the doldrums of 2013-14.

“I felt like my conditioning had to be up a bit. I felt like that was where I kind of struggled last year,” Marchand said. “So I tried to focus a little more on that and more mental aspects of the game, and hopefully that will help me improve.”

Marchand had 25 goals last season, his second-best career total, but he had just four goals in the Bruins’ first 31 games. After salvaging his regular season, he failed to score in 12 postseason games, a fact that contributed to the seven-game series loss to the Montreal Canadiens in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Although he said several factors hurt his conditioning, the Bruins’ short offseason last summer had a huge effect after their run to the 2013 Stanley Cup finals when they played until late June.

This year’s longer offseason meant more rest and time to improve. It also provided plenty of time for trade rumors to flourish. Not long after the Bruins lost to the Canadiens, one such rumor, which Marchand classified as “outrageous,” caused B’s general manager Peter Chiarelli to state he had no plans to trade Marchand nor had he spoken with anyone about the 26-year-old.

Marchand, who is entering the second season of a four-year deal with an annual cap hit of $4.5 million and a modified no-trade clause, appreciated the words from Chiarelli.

“I don’t really know where the rumor started. I think people were speculating because of the playoffs. It was kind of snowballing there a bit, and maybe he just wanted to put my mind at ease for the summer,” Marchand said. “But even when (the rumors) were out, I wasn’t worried. And I think he just wanted to squash it before it got to be a big problem.”

So it appears the Bruins consider Marchand part of the solution to making up for the loss of Jarome Iginla’s 30 goals rather than the problem of clearing enough cap space to retain unsigned entry-level free agents Reilly Smith and Torey Krug.

“You can only control the things, focus on the things you can control,” Marchand said. “At the end of the day if they have to trade me, I can’t control that. But hopefully with my play, my potential ability to help the team, they want to keep me here.”