Photo Credit: Anne-Marie Sorvin/USA TODAY Sports
Even though his relationship with his hometown has been rocky since he hoisted the Stanley Cup on Vancouver ice wearing Boston Bruins laundry, Vancouver Giants great Milan Lucic in a Vancouver Canucks uniform has been a cherished pipe dream of many hockey fans in the lower mainland since, oh, about 2007.
Could this long-held fantasy be realized this weekend? Probably not, but it would seem to be as close to a realistic possibility as its ever been. Maybe Buccigross knew.
There’s a lot of context to unpack here, but we’ll start with why the Bruins might consider trading a player who, along with Zdeno Chara and Patrice Bergeron, is the face of a franchise that had enjoyed considerable success over the past half decade. 
The Bruins are pressed up against the salary cap, and even the NHLPA okaying the escalator is only a modest help. Boston currently has roughly $12 million in salary cap space, according to NHLNumbers.com, and they have a variety of key pieces to re-sign including restricted free agent Dougie Hamilton who is due a significant raise and could be the target of an offer sheet this summer. 
If the Bruins can move out Lucic’s $6 million salary, even if they’re taking a somewhat significant salary back, that would give them some much needed additional breathing room.
And they’re apparently very seriously considering the possibility, at least according to one NHL general manager who spoke with Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman on Thursday. From Friedman’s Thursday evening appearance on Sportsnet 960 the Fan, by way of the all hearing ears and all transcribing hands of Chris Nichols:
On a phone call he received that interrupted the first half of this radio hit:
“It was another general manager and I was just asking him about Lucic and I said, ‘Is this real?’
“It’s not a guy who is involved with the Bruins and… this is a guy I think he’s really plugged in and I just said, ‘How real do you think this is?’
“And he said he thinks it’s pretty real. He thinks that the Bruins are – I’ll give you a bit of history. Last year there were some rumors that Lucic was available and Peter Chiarelli shot those down pretty quick, but I just remember around that time talking with guys and having them asking me, ‘What have you heard?’
“And that rarely happens. Normally it’s me trying to pull information out of them and this time it was them, ‘What rumors have you heard?’
“And I think that his name – I think there’s a lot of interest in him. So I was just trying to gauge how real it is and where this is going to go. Judging after that conversation I get the sense it’s very real that Boston is seriously considering it.”
Well then, it would appear that the NHL’s premiere power forward may legitimately be available.
Lucic does control his destiny to some extent, as he has the right to submit a list of 15-teams that he’s willing to accept a trade too. According to a report from DJ Bean of WEEI, that list has been submitted.
And according to Vancouver-based sports talk radio personality Bob ‘the Moj’ Marjanovich – who you may know as Lucic’s biggest booster in the Vancouver market – the Canucks are on Lucic’s list:
Now the Canucks have some of their own salary cap issues, although they’re not quite as stark as Boston’s are. They have apparently inquired on Lucic’s availability though, according to a report from Iain MacIntyre of the Vancouver Sun:
Local hero plot lines aside, Lucic’s effectiveness has begun to taper off somewhat in recent seasons and he’s become pretty dependent on his line-mates, David Krejci in particular, for his offensive production. He’d still destroy things with the brothers Sedin though, or be a fierce and probably productive presence on a second line (with say Nick Bonino and Sven Baertschi?). He’s also still 27-years-old, and sometimes your team-relative underlying numbers look really bad because you happen to play on the same team, but not the same line, as a ridiculous controller of play like Patrice Bergeron.
Anyway this remains a farfetched scenario and should be regarded as such until reports get more high pitched and serious. Combing through the public record though it would legitimately appear that Lucic is for real available on the trade market, that the Canucks are interested, and that they’re among many teams that Lucic would consent to be dealt to.
And if an expected Kevin Bieksa deal goes through, the Canucks may even have the salary cap flexibility to make this happen.