Don Sweeney No Longer Needs Armor Following Return Of Bruins’ Favorite

It’s official Boston — Milan Lucic will once again pull on the Spoked-B for the Bruins.

The fan-favorite couldn’t contain his excitement when he spoke with the media after inking his new one-year, $one million deal to bring the forward back to Boston on Saturday.

“Having the opportunity to come back, you can see the smile on my face right now. It feels like I’m going home,” Lucic told reporters. “It’s always felt like I’ve been a Bruin, and I’m just so happy and thankful for the opportunity to be a Bruin again.”

Lucic spent the first eight years of his career playing for the Bruins. Suiting up in 566 games for Boston, the 35-year-old winger racked up 342 points (139 goals, 203 assists) and won a Stanley Cup with the historic franchise in 2011.

Four years later in 2015, general manager Don Sweeney pulled the trigger and traded the energetic, intimidating forward to the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for goaltender Martin Jones, defenseman Colin Miller and the 13th overall pick in the 2015 NHL Draft which was used to select Jakub Zboril. Sweeney touched on the decision to trade Lucic eight years ago.

“I mean, when I think back, I had to have a flak jacket and a helmet on walking around Boston on some of those decisions,” Sweeney told reporters, per team-provided transcripts. “They weren’t popular, they weren’t fun, they weren’t something I wanted to do.

“We looked back at it and back then at the time, we had at the time… With March coming on there was going to be six guys with long term deals and we just made a really hard decision. It was one of the hardest ones I’ve ever made as a general manager, and it was early on. So, again, in a perfect world, he never would have left. I was grateful to be able to bring him back and allow him to have the impact that he wants to have, and we’re excited about it.”

After a year with the Kings, Lucic continued his career in the Western Conference playing three years with the Edmonton Oilers and four with the Calgary Flames.

“I had to have a flak jacket and a helmet on walking around Boston.”

Boston Bruins general manager Don Sweeney on trading Milan Lucic in 2015

Lucic never had quite the same success with those teams as he did with the Bruins, but the decision was never personal for Sweeney, and he believes Lucic knows that.

“You know what, Looch loves the game, loves Boston, he’s never indicated anything other than that. He knows it was more of a business decision and he did what was best for his family from there,” Sweeney explained. “Whether that was not staying in LA and moving on and he’s had a terrific career and it’s going to continue. From a hard feelings standpoint, Looch is just a solid person, and he knows where his feet are and now, he moves them back here because he’s really happy for him and his family to have this opportunity again.”

Lucic said he has thought about what it would be like to be a Boston Bruin again — even when he was playing for other teams.

“I’m looking forward to it really badly because I’ve thought about this moment for the last seven years,” Lucic said. “I’ve been thinking about what it would be like to put on the spoked-B, Black and Gold again.”

And he can’t wait to wear the jersey in front of the Bruins’ fans again.

“We just bonded from the get-go,” Lucic said of his relationship with the fans. “… It was one of those things where it was a match made in heaven, where my style of play kind of fit the Big Bad Bruins identity and all that type of stuff. It just fit the attitude and the identity of the city of Boston.”