Photo Credit: Bob DeChiara/USA TODAY Sports

The dream of Milan Lucic wearing Canucks blue is dead, at least for this year, with the bruising power forward landing with the Los Angeles Kings.

The Kings paid a bounty to acquire Lucic, a package that included Los Angeles’ 13th overall pick, excellent AHL defenseman Colin Miller, and Martin Jones. To maximize their return and to make the cap dollars work for Los Angeles, Boston has reportedly retained close to half of Lucic’s salary. Lucic is a valuable contributor and a nightmare to play against, something the Canucks will have to do several times next season. He makes the already imposing Kings forward group that much more difficult to handle and matchup against. 

For one year of Lucic though the Kings dealt a good deal of treasure. Miller is a significant prospect, and recorded 19 goals and 52 points for the Calder Cup winning Manchester Monarchs, adding 10 additional points in the postseason.  MeanwhileJones is a quality young NHL goaltender, certainly an analogous trade chip to Jacob Markstrom, and the Kings threw in a lottery pick for good measure.

Lucic is a unique NHL asset, but that’s a significant haul for Boston (much more significant, actually, then what they netted from the Calgary Flames in a trade for Dougie Hamilton).

If the Canucks were reluctant to pay the going rate to acquire Lucic that’s a sensible decision. His effectiveness has been on the decline in recent seasons, and he’s very probably not a player that drives play or offensive production on his own at this stage of his career. 

And anyway the Canucks can make a bid on Lucic this summer, with Fox Sports’ Andy Strickland suggesting on Friday that the prototypical NHL power forward would be amenable to a Vancouver homecoming at that time:

The final underlying theme now of Friday evening though, is that the Pacific Division is poised to bounce back from an odd, off year during the 2014-15 campaign. The Oilers are getting McDavid, the Kings have bulked up, and the Calgary Flames have improved their back-end significantly.

For a Canucks team that narrowly returned to the postseason and still aspires to compete for the Stanley Cup annually even as they retool and restock, the hours leading up to the draft have been full of bad news.