Calgary Flames winger Milan Lucic isn't the player he once was with the Boston Bruins.
Lucic, traded by the Bruins to the Los Angeles Kings before the 2015-16 season, notched 50-plus point seasons with L.A. in 2015-16 and with the Edmonton Oilers in 2016-17, but since then has seen his numbers take a turn for the worse.
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In his first season with the Flames, Lucic has 17 points (six goals, 11 assists) through 59 games, and is on pace to surpass his 20-point total through 79 games with the Oilers last season. But while he's performing better than last season, the 31-year-old was benched by the Flames in November for not meeting expectations -- and he wasn't happy about it.
“The first time we played St. Louis here on a Hockey Night in Canada game, I got benched in the third period," Lucic said, according to SportsNet's Elliotte Friedman. "Nothing was said to me by anyone. I wasn’t really happy about it, and I even started questioning whether I should hang them up because it just wasn’t fun for me anymore. It had nothing to do with James Neal having success — I just think for myself it was just really hard and especially when you’re getting benched and no one is saying anything to you.”
Lucic played a major role in the Bruins' 2011 Stanley Cup victory, tallying 12 points (five goals, seven assists) on a line also powered by David Krejci and Nathan Horton. While some fans want to see a Krejci-Lucic reunion in Boston, it unlikely that Bruins GM Don Sweeney would be looking to add a player who can't add much to the second line for a deep run into the playoffs.