Boston still has playoff expectations without Dougie Hamilton and Milan Lucic
SUNRISE, Fla. – New Kings forward Milan Lucic has the luxury of perspective when it comes to Los Angeles, and his old team – the Boston Bruins.
For the Kings: “If you look at the roster right now. We’re in the top two or three in the league right now as competitors.”
And as for the Bruins: “I think they’re going to be fine. They’re making some changes that they feel is best for them.”
For two teams that seemed to be intrinsically linked by their size and puck possession numbers in the past, both were in a dealing mood of different directions Friday. The Kings, who didn’t make the playoffs this year, are trying to get back to where they were when they won the Stanley Cup in 2014. The Bruins? They’re trying to go younger, like way younger.
They had three first-round picks, and used ALL of them. Some of us thought they’d use one of them perhaps as part of the mythical larger deal to land someone splashy that could help Boston next year. Nope.
“We have to integrate our younger players in our lineup and do a better job,” general manager Don Sweeney said before he used the selections on defenseman Jakub Zboril, forward Jake DeBrusk and forward Zachary Senyshyn.
All three looked like triplets walking around the draft floor Friday evening.
Sweeney then later added, “Our expectations are to make the playoffs.”
Boston, for better or for worse, is now Don Sweeney’s team.
Are they a playoff team? Lucic, who is set to be an unrestricted free agent next offseason, seemed to still think so.
“I still think they’re going to be a really good team,” he said. “With (Patrice) Bergeron and (David) Krejci, (they have) one of the best one-two punches as far as centermen go in the Eastern Conference and in the NHL,” he said
Lucic tacked on Tuukka Rask as another reason why Boston will continue to be fine in spite of taking a giant sledgehammer to their roster in one day, trading Lucic – one of the core pieces of their 2011 Stanley Cup roster and Dougie Hamilton earlier in the day to Calgary. Overall they got little in return tangibly NHL player wise except goaltender Martin Jones from the Kings.
As for the Kings, Lucic thinks this offseason will serve LA well. A little rest never hurt the body.
“I do think going into next season, they didn’t make the playoffs, so it gives the players a chance to get their rest and get re-energized and get back into tip-top shape to be focused and be hungry again to get in the playoffs and go for that Stanley Cup again,” he said.
And as the Los Angeles Times notes, he will fit well with the Kings and Darryl Sutter’s forechecking and cycling system that utilizes big, mobile forwards.
You might say that Lucic is a prototypical Darryl Sutter player. Sutter, the Kings’ coach, is known for preferring big physical players, and 6-foot-4, 235-pound Lucic comes right out of central casting. To be effective, he needs a playmaking center, and the Kings have that in Anze Kopitar.
Also, he seemed pretty pumped about some of the other elements of living in Los Angeles. If he was only traded a day earlier he would have been in Anaheim with his oldest daughter, checking out Disneyland. Alas, he wasn’t able to stay and check out SoCal. But he did mention he’ll try to get a season pass.
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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper
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