Some say that Claude Julien can be one of those coaches who’s hard on his youngest players — maybe a guy who isn’t fully appreciated by those players until they grow up a little and move on to a different destination.
Count Milan Lucic as one of the players who benefitted greatly from having Julien as his first NHL coach, someone who guided him from second-round pick to a fearsome power forward who once scored 30 goals and earned enough of a reputation for the Edmonton Oilers to pay him $6 million per year for seven seasons.
“He was a huge influence on my career,” Lucic said Saturday, ahead of the Oilers-Canadiens game on Sunday. “I can say that I wouldn’t be the player that I am today or in the position that I am today if it wasn’t for him embracing me and believing me, especially as a 19-year-old, to believe that I could be the player that I could be. So I have a lot to thank him for, for what he did in my career.”
Julien’s first season behind Boston’s bench was Lucic’s first in the NHL as well, so they were tied togetherfrom the start.
In October of 2007, before Lucic had played his first home game as a Bruin, he had already been involved in his first NHL fight with Raitis Ivanans, a pugilist 10 years Lucic’s senior.
“He stood up to a pretty big guy,” Julien said at the time. “I thought he did a great job. He earned a lot of respect from guys around the league.”
In fact, in 2008 Julien was talking about a then-sophomore Lucic and said that although he didn’t think Lucic would be NHL-ready just one year after being drafted, he was too competitive in training camp to keep down, a decision the coach did not regret.
“When he came to our training camp last year, we could see he had a good future ahead of him, but we didn’t think he was ready for the NHL,” Julien said. “But he forced us to keep him with his competitive nature. By the end of the season, anybody that watched us could see he was one of our best players in the playoffs.”
Lucic and Julien remained together in Boston for eight seasons, reaching two Stanley Cup finals, winning one, and making it to at least the second round five times. Lucic played 96 playoff games with Boston, scoring 26 goals and 61 points.
In June of 2015 Lucic, who was heading into the final year of his contract before he became a UFA, was shipped to Los Angeles for Colin Miller, Martin Jones and the 13th overall pick in the draft, which they used to take Jakub Zboril. It came at the tail end of the first season Lucic, Julien and the Bruins had missed the playoffs.
Julien lasted one more playoff-less season in Boston and the Bruins were sitting outside of the wild card when he was dismissed from the team this season. Now both grizzled veterans in their positions, Lucic and Julien will be on opposite benches when the Oilers and Canadiens meet for the Hometown Hockey game on Sportsnet Sunday night.
“Like I told him the day he got fired, I congratulated him for everything he accomplished with the Boston Bruins and wished him the best of luck with the Montreal Canadiens,” Lucic said. “Like I said, he was a big influence on my career that will always be a big part of my life, especially with everything that we achieved together.”
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