Lucic remembers the good old days
Milan Lucic, appearing on a podcast with former NHLers Mike Commodore and Andrew Raycroft, acknowledged he wanted to move on from the Oilers when he was struggling before the 2019 James Neal trade.
“Looking back now, I think seven years is too long,” said Lucic, who signed a seven-year, $42 million deal in 2016. “I think it’s great guys sign their seven-, eight-year deals and get their money, but I remember when I was in Boston, I signed two three-year deals coming off my entry-level deal. I was happier on the three-year deals than I was on the seven-year deals.”
Security is nice, he reasoned, but if the situation isn’t working out, there’s less flexibility on either side.
“I wanted to move on from Edmonton,” Lucic said, “but because of my cap hit and the years left on the contract, it became hard for the team and it became hard for me.”
Winning is what drives Lucic. He still watches highlights of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final.
“The first thing that comes to mind is the last couple seconds, reliving the feeling of throwing your gloves in the air and celebrating,” he said. “It’s just cool to relive it. We still have a group chat. I’m always kind of the first guy that will go on there and I just write, ‘Happy 12 years, boys,’ and everyone likes it and says all that type of stuff. It’s pretty cool to relive it all.”
Blessed with a savant’s recall, Lucic can still rattle off stats, lines, and defense pairs from memory. The three main reasons the Bruins won the Cup, in his reflection:
The goalies: “Having Timmy [Thomas] and Tuukka [Rask], you’d go a whole week of practice and you wouldn’t even score a goal.”
The defense: “You couldn’t even get to the net with how big they were. They’d box you out. Even Andy Ference, he was a littler guy, but he might have been the meanest out of all of them. He was bottom-heavy, and he would cross-check the [expletive] out of you if you tried to get to the net.”
Good health: The Canucks, he recalled, were a walking M*A*S*H unit by the end of the series. Among Bruins, other than Nathan Horton, who was lost to a concussion during the series,
“it was just me and [Patrice Bergeron] who were playing through stuff.”
“I think about that group all the time,” Lucic said. “I wish we were still together.”
Big change for women’s game
Entering the weekend, it looked like women’s hockey was taking a massive step toward a sustainable future, but it was a painful one for some.
For those catching up: A group led by Mark and Kimbra Walter, part-owners of the Los Angeles Dodgers and coowners of Chelsea FC, and tennis legend and women’s sports pioneer Billie Jean King announced the creation of a new women’s league, set to drop the puck in January.
It appears that the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association, the barnstorming group made up largely of Olympians and national-team-caliber players from the United States and Canada, would form the bulk of the player pool. The PWHPA, this spring certified as a union, set a Sunday deadline to ratify a collective bargaining agreement that would include a $35,000 minimum salary.
Concurrently, the Walter/King group bought out and dissolved the Premier Hockey Federation, voiding all player contracts (which contained no protective language). Unless the new league wants them, it appears the Boston Pride, a flagship member of the former NWHL (2015-21) and three-time NWHL/PHF champion, and the other PHF franchises (Minnesota, Buffalo, Montreal, Toronto, New York/New Jersey, and Connecticut) will be no more.
It might spell the end to the pro careers of some players on the fringe, who now find themselves without options. The caliber of play in the new league, ostensibly, will be higher. Perhaps a development league can come from this, feeding the top pro league.
A tough situation for now, and par for the course with the growing pains of the women’s game.
In time, this move promises to raise the standard, especially since the NHL will now feel free to invest resources. The NHL has long avoided planting its flag with one of the women’s leagues (including the late Canadian Women’s Hockey League) as to not show favoritism, or step on any legal landmines.
If the top players are under one banner, the NHL is likely to show up.
Loose pucks
Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said he will bring the Stanley Cup to Milton on July 13. The party is at Glover Elementary School, 255 Canton Avenue, from 9-11 a.m. Cassidy will celebrate with the family of the late Cassidy Murray, who died in March 2022 while vacationing in Aruba with her parents. Murray, a classmate of Cassidy’s daughter, Shannon, at Buckingham Browne & Nichols in Cambridge, died in a tubing accident. Her parents have pleaded with the Aruban government to increase recreational boating safety on the island. Dave and Linda Murray are now launching the Cassidy Murray Foundation to help families who are affected by tragic loss, and increase access to mental health resources for the grieving . . . Jack Eichel plans to bring the Cup to Skate 3 Ice Arena in Tyngsboro on July 14 from 10 a.m. to noon. Eichel, from North Chelmsford, skated there as a tyke . . . David Pastrnak was awarded the Golden Hockey Stick (Czech player of the year) in his home country. It is the sixth win for Pastrnak, whose record streak of five was broken last year by Ondrej Palat. Pastrnak, 27, has time to catch Jaromir Jagr (12 wins) for most all time . . . Funniest moment from the draft: 35-year-old Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson getting sucked into a man-on-the-street interview. The interviewer, Nashvillebased Penalty Box Radio, did not know the “Kyle from Chicago” they were speaking with was an NHL executive. Davidson — out for a stroll, in a backward cap and T-shirt — was asked to rate his hockey knowledge on a 1-to-10 scale. “I didn’t play professionally or anything, so I would say about a 4,” Davidson said. “I don’t know, some people say I don’t know that much.” When asked to name as many hockey players as he could in 20 seconds, he named 18 Blackhawks. The interviewer then asked Davidson if he believed the NHL rigged the lottery so the Hawks could pick first. “No,” he said, looking into the camera. “I’m very confident.” . . . After trading for Corey Perry, Taylor Hall, and Nick Foligno, Davidson could roll out one of 2014 s best forward lines
. . . Three of the top 11 picks in the draft will play this coming season on Commonwealth Avenue: Boston College’s
Will Smith (fourth overall, San Jose) and Ryan Leonard (eighth, Washington) and Boston University’s Tom Willander (11th, Vancouver). Six 2023 first-rounders will play in Hockey East, including UConn’s Matthew Wood (15th, Nashville), BC’s Gabe Perreault (23rd, New York Rangers), and Maine’s
Bradly Nadeau (30th, Carolina). Also, BU commit Macklin Celebrini, a Vancouver product, is one of the early contenders for first overall in the 2024 draft. His brother, Aiden, was just taken in the sixth round by the Canucks . . . In other college news, loved seeing Tennessee State become the first HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) to start a hockey program . . . Here’s the NHL Draft all-name team: Starting forward line is Quentin Musty (Sharks first-rounder), Gracyn Sawchyn (Panthers second-rounder), and
Florian Xhekaj (JACK-eye), whom the Canadiens drafted a year after signing his brother, Arber. Then we have the defense pair of Ducks fifth-rounder
Rodwin Dionicio, from Switzerland, and Dennis Good Bogg, an Islanders seventh-rounder from Sweden. We’ll platoon the goalies, as is the current trend, with Panthers fifth-rounder Olof Glifford (Sweden) and Kraken sixthrounder Visa Vedenpää (Finland). Honorable mention: Kings fourthrounder Hampton Slukynsky and Blackhawks fifth-rounder Marcel Marcel. We’d also be smart to find a spot for Canadian forward Zaccharya Wisdom, taken in the seventh round by the Kraken . . . Other than Bruins third-rounder
Beckett Hendrickson, son of the former NHL player and current Wild assistant coach Darby Hendrickson, NHL lineage was drafted in Capitals first-rounder Ryan Leonard (brother of John Leonard); Rangers first-rounder Gabe Perreault (son of Yanic Perreault); Flyers first-rounder Oliver Bonk (son of Radek Bonk), fourth-rounder Cole Knuble (son of Mike Knuble), and seventh-rounder Matteo Mann (son of Trent Mann); Lightning second-rounder Ethan Gauthier (son of Denis Gauthier); Predators fifth-rounder Sutter Muzzatti (son of
Jason Muzzatti); Red Wings fourthrounder Larry Keenan (no relation to
Mike Keenan, though his grandfather,
Larry Keenan, did play); Canadiens seventh-rounder Luke Mittelstadt (brother of Casey Mittelstadt); and Sharks seventh-rounder David Klee (son of Ken Klee) . . . The GMs did not meet en masse at the draft to discuss league business. The next formal meeting is Sept. 7-8 in Chicago. The coaches will also meet then . . . Now you know this about Connor Bedard, who spent his draft season showing everyone why he was a no-doubt No. 1 pick: He has a nut allergy . . . Speaking of nuts at the draft, it was 49 years ago this summer the Sabres selected Taro Tsujimoto — a fictitious player — and spent the next few months convincing the media he was real . . . Just wanted this on the record: It’s absurd the Hall of Fame hasn’t inducted Alexander Mogilny. Absurd.