Bruins.com — The NHLPA poll was released Sunday, and 20 percent of the players voted that forward Milan Lucic is the toughest player in the league.
“It’s good to hear that,” Lucic said before Sunday’s game. “It’s an honor to be recognized by the people around the league as being a tough player. For myself, you take a lot of pride in that just because of the way I play and have to keep that up.”
In 56 games this season, Lucic’s 20 goals are tied with Tyler Seguin for the team lead, and his 109 penalty minutes are second only to Shawn Thornton (122).
Milan Lucic always seems to find himself in the center of attention. Last year in the playoffs he was criticized for his slow skating, comments were made that it looked like he had cement in his skates. Other times he is centered around a controversial hit. Or it is his offensive skills and how many or how nice of a goal he had.
One thing is for sure, no matter what the topic of discussion is with Looch, he still shows up to play on a nightly basis. He is part of the Bruins top line but he is the physical presence on the top line for the Bruins and if someone tries to push around Krejci, Lucic is right there to have his back, along with anyone else on his team.
When it comes to toughness, from the first time I saw Lucic play in a Bruins uniform I always enjoyed the way he played the game. Still to this day I have a hard time trying to figure out if he is more Cam Neely or Terry O’Reilley. But one of the fights which put him on the map, had to be when he dismantled Mike Komisarek then taunted the Habs bench.
