Los Angeles Kings winger Milan Lucic will have to wait 51 games before his first matchup with his former team, the Boston Bruins. Not that he’s counting or anything.
Lucic, whose eight-season run with the Bruins ended in June when he was traded to the Kings, made it clear in an interview with The Boston Globe’s Amalie Benjamin that he’s eagerly anticipating his first meeting with the club that drafted him.
From the Globe:
Milan Lucic didn’t hesitate.
“February,” he said. “We don’t play (the Bruins) till February. We’re in Boston Feb. 9, and then Boston is here March 19. It’s not till way late.”
He knows the dates. They’re imprinted on his mind.
As Lucic, speaking by telephone from Los Angeles on Wednesday said, “Those were the ones that I looked at right away, to be honest, when they came out.”
The trade, which netted Boston goalie Martin Jones (who subsequently was traded), defenseman Colin Miller and a first-round draft pick that turned into D-man Jakub Zboril, sent Lucic into uncharted waters. He’d never worn anything but the spoked-B on his chest since being drafted in 2006.
The 27-year-old also is entering the final year of his contract, adding another layer of intrigue to his maiden West Coast voyage. Ideally, he said, he’d love for his career to continue on in L.A.
“Another thing that I have to learn how to deal with, too, is that little bit of uncertainty,” Lucic told the Globe. “I’ve always known that, ‘Hey, OK, I’m going to be here (in Boston) and the contract is there,’ so none of that was ever in the back of your mind, right? So I guess there is a little bit of uncertainty there, as well.
“Usually when the team has success, individuals have success, so I’m just trying to come here and help the team win hockey games, and usually when you do that everything else takes care of itself. … In a perfect world, I’d love to stay out here.”
Check out Lucic’s full interview with the Globe >>
Thumbnail photo via Jayne Kamin-Oncea/USA TODAY Sports Images
