Milan Lucic ready to make most of his return to Bruins: ‘It feels like I’m coming home’
"I've thought about this moment for the past seven years."
The NHL free agency feeding frenzy commenced at noon on Saturday.
It took Milan Lucic all of one minute to reaffirm his desire to return to Boston.
At 12:01 p.m. Bruins general manager Don Sweeney received a text from Lucic, with the Boston fan favorite donning a new baseball cap adorned with the spoked-B.
Lucic, currently out in Los Angeles, went out to a local store to buy a new cap to celebrate the occasion.
After all, it’s been a long time coming.
“I’ve thought about this moment for the past seven years,” Lucic said on Saturday via Zoom, his unblemished new headwear still in place.
After last donning the black-and-gold sweater in the spring of 2015, Lucic is returning to Boston on a one-year, $1 million contract. Performance bonuses can help him secure another $500,000.
After eight seasons spent primarily on the West Coast and Western Canada, Lucic will return to the market where he hoisted a Stanley Cup and ingratiated himself into the fabric of an Original Six franchise thanks to his punishing style of play.
“Obviously it’s a place that’s close and dear to my heart,” Lucic said. “Having the opportunity to come back, you can see the smile on my face right now. It feels like I’m going home. I’ve always felt like I’ve always been a Bruin. I’m just so happy and thankful for the opportunity to be a Bruin again.”
A lot has changed since the last time Lucic took to the ice with Boston. Even though Boston hopes to remain competitive in 2023-24, it remains to be seen if Lucic’s longtime teammates in Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci will join him this winter.
Boston’s new core, with players like Charlie McAvoy, David Pastrnak, Hampus Lindholm, Linus Ullmark, Jeremy Swayman and others are starting to pave the path forward.
But even if Lucic is no longer the top-six stalwart he once was during his first stint in Boston, that doesn’t mean that the 6-foot-3 winger isn’t going to shirk away from any scraps.
“Just felt like bringing Looch back to Boston was the right thing to do, for all the reasons,” Sweeney said on Saturday. “He feels like he’s got a lot of juice left, and we feel he can provide a real jolt of both enthusiasm, bite to our lineup, help guys like [Trent Frederic] and [Jakub Lauko] and probably create a little bit of space if somebody’s breathing down Pasta’s neck.
“It’s a thing we’ve missed. In a perfect world, he never would have left, but those decisions were made and we [brought] him back home and we’re happy about it.”
Lucic, one of many NHL veterans that the Bruins brought aboard Saturday on short-term, affordable deals, should carve out a regular role on Boston’s fourth line.
Along with serving as a guiding presence for the expected of young talent that the Bruins hope to inject into the lineup, Lucic’s trademark thump will be welcomed in a forward corps that might have to rely on snarl over skill during this cap-crunched season.
“I can help with the young guys, but also just bringing it every day, bringing it in practice, bringing it in games, all that type of stuff,” Lucic said. “That’s something that I haven’t lost. I still have that fire every day, that competitiveness, whether it’s practice or games.”
Lucic’s return stands as one of the few buzz-worthy jolts the Bruins have generated following their solemn, first-round playoff exit and the ramifications that followed after a slew of “win-now” moves.
But for as much as the cheers of “Looooooooch” from the Garden crowd should become a regular occurrence during Boston’s upcoming centennial season, Lucic doesn’t want his second go-around with the Bruins to revolve around nostalgic rhetoric. He still wants results.
“By no means is this a reunion just for a farewell tour,” Lucic said. “I’m coming back for the right reasons. I think I’m coming back to help this team continue to progress and chase a championship, and I’m really confident in my ability to help this team do that.”
Lucic believes he still has more left in the tank. To prove that out on the ice in a city he called home for eight years stands as a fitting way to bring his hockey journey full circle.
“I’ve been thinking about what it would be like to put on the spoked-B, Black and Gold again. That’s why I’m so grateful for this opportunity,” Lucic said. “When you start somewhere, I don’t want to say I took it for granted, because you guys all know me. I lived it and I truly did appreciate what it meant to be a Boston Bruin and living in Boston and playing for an Original Six team and playing in front of those fans every single night. … To get to relive that, it’s almost like I’m more grateful for it now than I was at the beginning because as time goes on, sometimes you don’t know how good things are until it’s gone
“A lot of players don’t get to have that opportunity again like I get to have. Not only that, not only for myself and the fans and the city, but I get to do this in front of my kids. My two girls were born in Boston, but they were two and newborn when I got traded. Now they’re 10, eight and five. For me, to wear the spoked-B in front of my children just adds to it all. To get to do this in front of the fans again, it’s going to mean so much, so right now I can’t wait for October 11 when the first game happens in Boston.”
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com