Kalman: Milan Lucic's Return To Boston Should Remind Bruins Of What They're Missing
BOSTON (CBS) -- For eight seasons, forward Milan Lucic was one of the most intimidating figures in the NHL while wearing a Bruins sweater.
As he gets prepared for his first game as an opponent of his 6-foot-3, 233-pound former teammate, 5-foot-9, 186-pound Bruins defenseman Torey Krug isn't feeling the butterflies that opponents league-wide have still been feeling since Lucic was traded to the Los Angeles Kings at the NHL Draft last June.
"I like going to battle," Krug said after practice at TD Garden on Monday. "It'll be fun. He has a big presence when he's on the ice. He does good things for his team and we'll see what he brings tomorrow. I'm sure he'll be pretty excited to play and be up for the test."
Krug would be wise, however, to have a little concern about how he and the Bruins are going to handle facing Lucic on Tuesday. The power forward has 12-18-30 totals for the Pacific Division-leading Kings, and by all accounts he's still been every bit the punishing physical presence he was on Causeway Street. Of course, he leads the Kings with 172 hits.
One could argue that the driving force in the restoration of the Bruins as the same type of hard-nosed, physical team they were when at their best in the '70s and '80s was the drafting of Lucic in the second round in 2006 and then promoting him in 2007 to the NHL, where he developed into an imposing fixture in the Bruins' lineup for teams that won a Stanley Cup in 2011 and the Eastern Conference title in 2013.
There were plenty of downs to go with all the ups during Lucic's tenure in Boston. Lucic and the Bruins suffered through his seven-goal season during the lockout-shortened 2013 campaign. But he bounced back and scored seven goals in the run to the Stanley Cup Final. He might not have been engaged on a nightly basis the way many fans wanted, but playing the style Lucic plays exacts punishment on the player that makes it impossible to duplicate the effort 82 times plus playoffs a year.
When the chips were down, no one was better at feeding off the crowd, making a play to lift his team when it was in the doldrums or put more fear in opponents' brains than Lucic while he was in Boston. I'd argue that a major reason the Bruins' home record is a dreadful 12-13-3 is they lack a player of Lucic's stature to jump start the team when it's playing pedestrian hockey and to channel the energy from the Garden fans into an electrifying play on the ice.
"I don't think if there's anybody that really replicates that," Bruins defenseman Kevan Miller. "There's a few guys in the league but Looch has his own little kind of personality about him. So I don't think you can replace that."
The Bruins knew Lucic was irreplaceable when they dealt him. But they decided to end their relationship with the player because of his $6 million salary, his probable demands this summer as an unrestricted free agent and their salary-cap situation. Let's face it, should the Kings come up short of winning the Stanley Cup and lose Lucic for nothing in the summer, there will be some regrets about that trade in Southern California.
But playing against the Bruins hasn't been nearly as difficult for opponents this season without Lucic. The current Bruins with Lucic might not have been ready to challenge the elite teams of the NHL this season, but they'd be a lot more threatening than the vanilla, mediocre team that relies on two or three guys to do all of its scoring and is almost as close to being out of the playoffs as it is to second place in its division.
Several Bruins tried to downplay, unconvincingly, the singular role Lucic played in the Bruins' big and bad renaissance.
"He was important but you guys forget one thing, there was also 20 other guys," longtime Lucic linemate David Krejci said. "I remember when that Toronto game, Game 7 2013, you guys just talked about he did everything. But it wasn't just him. He had four other guys on the ice with him. He had 15 guys on the bench with him. Obviously he was a big part of the team here, but so was all the other guys here."
Coach Claude Julien, a victim of what Bruins' management has been forced to do to the lineup because of contract demands from Lucic and Dougie Hamilton, has no choice but to proclaim his faith in the players he has at his disposal. So he's more interested in praising the players he has trying to make up for Lucic's loss.
"Well you'd hate to say that one guy created that identity. That guy did help the identity that everybody talks about," Julien said. "But as I mentioned earlier, [Matt Beleskey] may not be the same size as Looch, but he brings that element to the game. When you have to make changes, you have to make them. We lost a guy that was making a pretty good salary for that reason. But we got another one there that is willing to do the same thing. And he's been pretty consistent at doing it."
Lucic, though, was a catalyst and a player that inspired others to life their games. He also produced. People mock the 30 goals he scored in 2010-11 because he scored a handful of goals into an empty net. Lucic also had 24 goals in 2013-14 skating on a line with Krejci and Jarome Iginla, leading the Bruins to the Presidents' Trophy. He's on pace for at least 20 goals this season.
Beleskey's been a hit machine with 171. But he only has eight goals. No opponents are drawing up a game plan with an emphasis on neutralizing Matt Beleskey. The Bruins just aren't the same team without Lucic. He backed down from no one. The Bruins can be pushed around now.
Playing the way the Bruins want to play was a lot easier with Lucic leading the way. The organization is so married to that rough-and-tumble style that it might come to regret not hanging onto Lucic and paying him as a star. Instead the Bruins decided to go in another direction and Tuesday they have to game plan with a little bit of fear in their minds; they have to be ready for 233 pounds of Lucic bearing down on one of their top puck carriers.
"It's all right. He's got to do what he's got to do," Krejci said. "I'm going to go out there and play him as hard as all the other guys on the other side."
The Bruins' courage when faced with the idea of battling Lucic is admirable. His appearance at the Garden, however, will do more than make them pay a physical price. It'll remind them what they've been missing in the post-Lucic era.
Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com and also contributes to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on Twitter @TheBruinsBlog.