Lemieux wasn't a particularly well-liked player in his day, a fact Neely hammered home when he drove him headfirst into the boards in one memorable encounter while Lemieux was with the Devils. But while he never won any popularity contests, Lemieux did win four Stanley Cups and a Conn Smythe Trophy in 1995.
Lucic hasn't accomplished anything close to that yet, but he has shown a knack for raising his play when the games matter most, which led to Claude Julien uttering the comparison that is sure to raise conflicted emotions in Bruins fans.
"[It's] probably his approach," Julien said of Lucic's ability to excel in the postseason. "You have a lot of players that are good playoff players. You've seen that in the Claude Lemieuxs and those kind of guys in the past that always come out of the woodwork and become real efficient players for their teams. I think Looch has always been one of those guys that's just, I guess, really excited about those playoffs and performs really well.
"That's not just with our team, but obviously if he won the Memorial Cup with his [junior] club he had to be a pretty good player then too, and he was," Julien said. "[He's] just one of those guys that loves those big type of games and is a big type of player that comes up big in those situations."
Lucic did begin to establish his postseason credentials with the Western Hockey League's Vancouver Giants, being named the MVP of the Memorial Cup in 2007. And he's followed that up with some strong showings in the playoffs in Boston.
"It's always a challenge, you always have to take your game up and bring it to another level to be able to perform in the playoffs," Lucic said. "You can take the pressure any way you want to. You can let the pressure get the best of you or you can feed off the pressure."
Lucic feed off the pressure with a pair of goals in the opening round against Montreal as a rookie in 2008 after managing just eight goals in 77 games in the regular season. The following year he had a breakthrough 17-25-42 regular season, but still raised his game another notch in the playoffs with 3-6-9 totals and a team-best plus-12 in 10 games. And last year, after suffering through an injury-plagued season with just nine goals in 50 games, he put up 5-4-9 totals in 13 postseason contests.
"It's fun," Lucic said of playing in the playoffs. "It's what makes this so fun to be a part of. For myself, I just try to feed off those type of emotions and feed off the energy and not let it get the best of me. Especially in the playoffs you really have to have the mindset of take every shift like it's you last and make sure you're doing everything you can to help your team. For myself, I've always taken that as challenge and tried to rise up to the occasion."
Lucic, and the Bruins, will face another imposing challenge when they once again open the postseason against their archrivals. The Canadiens won four of the six meetings between the clubs this year, but Lucic had 4-5-9 totals and a plus-9 in those six games.
Overall, he put up career-highs across the board with 30-32-62 totals this season. But Lucic did slump a bit down the stretch. He had no goals in his final 10 games, and while he did chip in seven assists in that span, he wasn't his usual dominant physical presence with no hits in four of his final five games.
Lucic will have to get back to his all-around game and again raise his play in the postseason if the Bruins want to make this a long playoff run, and the Bruins are confident he'll rise to the occasion once again.
"I think if I base my judgment on how he's been in the playoffs since he's gotten here, I think he'll be ready," Julien said. "I have no doubt that he'll be a good player for us."
