Milan Lucic In a "Full Neely"

With the Patriots not playing this Sunday, the ringleaders at 4 Sport Boston World Headquarters dialed up one of their best ideas in the history of this bastion of information – another Bruins post. Can’t say that I blame them, as the B’s have been a stealth source of intrigue and excitement this season. Originally picked as a top team in the Eastern Conference and a possible Stanley Cup contender, the Black and Gold stumbled out of the gates, failing to win back-to-back games until mid-November (taking 17 games to do so.) 16 days into the season the Bruins were without their top playmaker (Marc Savard) and their top power forward (Milan Lucic) thanks to month-long injuries. The Bruins were powerless on the man advantage and had to rely too often on miracle comebacks to steal points against teams they should beat with relative ease.

Things started to change for the better with those back-to-back wins over Buffalo and Pittsburgh Nov 7 and 10. With the victories over then-division leading Buffalo and the defending Cup champion Penguins, the Bruins pretty much righted the good ship U.S.S. Black and Gold. Including those two wins, the B’s are 7-1-3. The only stinker of a game came in a 4-1 loss to the Islanders. The Bruins have been strengthened by a renewed focus on penalty killing, erasing 41-of-45 power plays against, turning what was once the league’s worst PK unit into the third-best in the NHL. Of course, having a goalie with the league’s second-best GAA and fourth-best save percentage also helps keep a team in games when the offense is a bit lacking. Oh, except for the fact that the goalie doing so isn’t the reigning Vezina Trophy winner. It is your rookie keeper with five career games before this season.

So what do the Bruins really have to show for the first 26 games of the year? Well, most importantly they have the division lead. Granted, it’s only a one-point lead over two teams and there are over 50 games left in the season, but just a few weeks ago, this team was almost in competition with itself for the top pick in the draft thanks to dual bad starts from the B’s and Toronto. For a team with the sixth-worst offense in the NHL to be at the top of its division leads to a solid stick salute in the direction of the defense and goaltending. Also, the loss of Savard allowed for Patrice Bergeron to remind everyone of just how good a player he is. Taking over top billing in the middle, Bergeron took over the team lead in scoring, seemingly won every faceoff and provided an example of how to play a complete game. The scary thing? He is in his sixth year of professional hockey and is just 24 years old. One of those years was lost to the lockout and the other to his serious concussion. He was often the forgotten pivot on the Bruins with Savard getting the main attention and David Krejci showing up as the surprise rookie while Bergeron worked on important things like being able to read and walk without extraneous effort. Now that he is back to top form, Bergeron has to be in any discussion about the Selke Trophy and maybe even a Lady Byng nomination (just don’t ask Josh Georges how gentlemanly he is.)

One name mentioned very briefly in these musings – and those of any hockey columnist except for when discussing potentially foolish contracts – is Milan Lucic. The Serbian Nightmare has been limited to just 10 games due to a broken finger and now a high-ankle sprain. He had scored two goals in his four games back from the broken finger and looked to be finding his touch when his left leg buckled back under him in Minnesota on Wednesday and shelved him for another month. If you are looking for a silver lining, first glance at the play where he was injured led me to scratch him for the season with an ACL/MCL/PCL injury. It just looked gruesome and season-ending. However, if a month-long injury is ever to be considered “lucky” then this is the time.

Of course, it doesn’t help that the Bruins locked up Lucic to a three-year extension at about $4 million a year. People seem to be questioning that decision a bit now that Lucic has been bit by the injury bug twice. The questioning of giving a big contract to Lucic is valid, but not because he smashed up a finger once or sprained his ankle. Those are random injuries that are normally not issues once healed. It isn’t as if he tore up his knee and will miss a year or more. All indications are that four weeks is the maximum on this recovery.

Instead, the questioning of Lucic’s long-term, high-money deal is valid when looked at as the huge gamble that it is. There are two players who will always be tied to Milan Lucic when he is playing for the Bruins and cashing his big checks over the next three years. The first is whipping up and down the wing in Toronto and firing pucks on net at a ridiculous rate. The other player is perched high above rinkside at most Bruins games as a vice president with the club.

It was crystal clear when Peter Chiarelli dealt Phil Kessel to the Maple Leafs this summer that he didn’t value Kessel at $5-6 million a year, even if he was a 35-45 goal scorer for all five years of the deal. For whatever reason, the B’s brass decided that Phil the Thrill’s personality and game didn’t mesh with the philosophy of the Bruins. Whether or not you should find a way to fit a 36-goal scorer into your team’s dynamic is another question, but the fact that the B’s turned around and gave Lucic his contract shortly after packing Kessel’s bags shows that the faith of Chiarelli and his lieutenants falls squarely on Lucic.

Lavishing over $12 million on the young winger is way of telling Lucic, “We expect you to turn yourself into a dominating power forward under this contract.” Good, smart teams do not pay fighter’s $4 million a year. They also do not pay 10-15 goal scorers $4 million a season. They do, however, pay players who excel at both offense and pugilism at that rate. The expectations are clear that Lucic is projected to become a 30+ goal scorer who is a matchup nightmare for opposing teams. Hey, that sounds familiar! Who is the modern prototype for the player the B’s expect Lucic to become? Oh yea, it’s his boss, Cam Neely.

Ever since his first big fight followed up by a nice goal, Lucic has been called “The Next Cam Neely” and the comparisons are not that far off. Of course, it was easier to project him to be like Cam when he was a cheaper player. Next year, he has to be Cam Neely. The question is, can Lucic do that?

The similarities between the two are definitely there. Both players hail from British Columbia and entered the NHL in their teens. Neely was a hulking presence on the wing, as big as a defenseman and as quick-wristed as a sniper. Lucic is even bigger, with two inches and 10 pounds on Sea Bass. In their first years in the League, both had to drop the gloves to establish their presence as a pro. Neely answered the bell 31 times over his first three seasons. Lucic has mixed it up 24 times so far.

Now, here is where I think the Lucic injury has its biggest impact. For most of his first two seasons, Lucic was viewed as a fighter first, goal scorer second. Sure, Shawn Thornton handled most of the serious business for the B’s, but Lucic was still a sought-after target by enforcers and pests around the league. His 17 goals and 10 fights last season showed he can do both well. For him to turn into the “Full Neely” he would have to carry enough weight as a fighter to stop the Jarko Ruutu’s of the world from challenging him and getting him off the ice for five minutes. The underlying blessing of the broken finger was that while it was healed enough for him to skate and shoot, it wasn’t healed enough for him to fight. For the first time in his career, Lucic could focus on being an offense-first player and not have to worry about sticking up for a teammate. He was forbidden from doing so by science. And he scored two pretty goals in his new role. He transitioned nicely from defense to offense on a 2-on-1 with Byron Bitz in Buffalo and then deftly deflected a shot from the point in St. Louis. Those two goals were very Neely-like. For every highlight of Neely throwing a huge hit or pummeling Claude Lemieux, there was one of him roofing a Craig Janney or Adam Oates pass or collecting some garbage in front of the net. He truly did have a well-rounded game.

Neely had 51 goals and 104 points in his first three years in the league before the Bruins swindled him from the Canucks. In his 2+ seasons, Lucic has gone for 27 goals and 74 points. It is doubtful Lucic will match Cam’s totals due to his injuries this year, but if he is healthy the rest of the way after the ankle heals, he could reach 40 goals and 100 points for his first three season as an NHLer. That would keep him on his projected level of filling #8’s shoes in the corners and slot for the foreseeable future.

The bottom line is that there is never a good time for an injury, but the timing of Lucic’s high ankle sprain is even worse. Claude Julien had to have been excited to work Lucic in as his primary power forward and help develop an overall offensive game – including maybe some time on the power play finally. No longer saddled with having to worry about answering the bell and let loose to focus on goal-scoring and pressuring defenders, Lucic had a chance to prove the doubters about giving a big contract to a moderately-scoring fighter wrong. Now, when the ankle is healed the finger will be as well, and Lucic will have to deal with the guys whose only job on an NHL team is to disrupt the games of the other team’s best options – such as Milan Lucic.