Ex-Giants Lucic, Machacek still close
17-year-old rookies in 2005-06 hit it off and have been buddies ever since
By the time (Lucic) was 19, you could tell that he was too good for our league.” Spencer Machacek
Here's betting that Milan Lucic's 1,000th NHL regular-season game was a conversation piece in parts of Wolfsburg, Germany, thanks to Spencer Machacek.
Lucic's former Vancouver Giants teammate and close friend Machacek is in his seventh season playing pro in the German Deutsche Eishockey Liga (DEL) and his third with Grizzlys Wolfsburg. Wolfsburg had a game Tuesday and Machacek, 32, came home afterward and stayed up into the wee hours to watch Lucic in his milestone contest that night against the host Toronto Maple Leafs, a matchup Calgary won 3-2 in overtime.
“I talked to him after. He's happy they got the win,” Machacek said Wednesday from Wolfsburg.
Machacek and Lucic talked before the game, as well. They correspond frequently, some 16 years after they first met.
They were both 17-year-old rookies with the 2005-06 Giants. Machacek, who's originally from Lethbridge, Alta., was one of the last players to come to town for training camp.
The Giants sent veteran forward Tim Kraus to the airport to pick him up. Lucic had come along for the ride.
“I thought, `Holy, this is a big boy,' ” Machacek recalled of that initial meeting with Lucic, who's listed these days at 6-foot-3, 231 pounds.
They clicked immediately. There was common ground. They were the same age. They had both been passed over in the WHL bantam draft before signing with the Giants. They were both workhorse wingers. The Giants took it another step and had them billet at the same house.
For those two seasons, you didn't often see one without the other close by when you were around the Giants.
“He was instantly like one of my buddies from back home. It was just natural,” Machacek said. “It's still like that. Sometimes we'll talk daily.
“I usually go see him every summer. This summer, because of COVID-19, was the first one in forever that I didn't see him.”
A big, bruising winger from East Vancouver, Lucic is just the 21st B.C.-born player to reach the 1,000-game plateau. Shea Weber is the active leader, as the pride of Sicamous was set to play his 1,030th game Wednesday against Lucic and the Flames. Retired forward Mark Recchi, who's from Kamloops, has the all-time mark with 1,652.
In their conversation Tuesday morning, Lucic had told Machacek that he had slept well the night before, that as excited as he was about reaching 1,000 it's still “nothing like your first game.”
“He's always been a teamfirst guy, but I really stressed to him to take it all in and realize that some of all this is about him and what he's accomplished,” Machacek said. “It's too bad that his family and friends couldn't be there. Knowing Brittany (Lucic's wife), there will be some sort of celebration when people are allowed to be together.”
Machacek was a 2007 thirdround draft pick of the Atlanta Thrashers. He got into 25 NHL games over three seasons, the last coming in 2011-12 with the Winnipeg Jets.
Machacek's brother-in-law — Machacek and wife JamieLea have two kids — is Paul Postma, a defenceman who suited up for 205 games with the Thrashers, Jets and the Boston Bruins, and is playing this season in Austria.
Machacek understands the grind. He appreciates what this takes. Machacek tells the story of a veteran player in one of his first pro stops pulling him aside and suggesting to him, “if you keep playing that hard, you'll have a short career.”
Lucic has logged those tough miles in his 1,000 games. A 2006 second-round draft pick of the Bruins, Lucic was the prototype power forward in the NHL for a time, a guy who had 30 goals and 121 penalty minutes in 2010-11 with Boston and then 26 goals and 135 penalty minutes in 2011-12 with the Bruins.
He's not the player he once was, but the 32-year-old Lucic is still a physical force. Heading into Wednesday, he had 824 hits since the start of the 2017-18 season. Only two players had more over that time.
“When did I think he was capable of having a long NHL career? That's tough. So many different things can happen,” Machacek said. “You could see his dedication right from the start. He came in his 17-year-old year with us and he wouldn't take no for an answer.
“He did what he did and he got drafted by Boston. They had some idea. And the progression just went from there. By the time he was 19, you could tell that he was too good for our league.”
Lucic and Machacek helped the Giants to the WHL title in 2006 and then to the Memorial Cup national championship in 2007 on Pacific Coliseum ice.
Lucic stuck with the Bruins in 2007-08 as a 19-year-old. Coach Don Hay had named him Vancouver's captain that summer, and Hay picked Machacek as his successor with the C in October.
That would be Machacek's final campaign with the Giants.