The St. Louis Blues announced early Tuesday morning that they have signed former Stanley Cup champion Milan Lucic to a professional tryout for the upcoming training camp.
We haven't seen Lucic in an NHL game since the 2023-24 season, when he appeared in four games for the Boston Bruins before taking an indefinite leave to enter the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program.
In his previous full season in the NHL, which came in 2022-23, Lucic skated in 77 games for the Calgary Flames and registered seven goals and 12 assists. He did, however, record his ninth-career 200-hit season.
The St. Louis Blues are slowly getting away from being the physical force that saw them win the Stanley Cup in 2019. Instead, they have been slowly adapting to today's NHL with faster players like Jordan Kyrou, Robert Thomas, and Dylan Holloway.
It's difficult to see where Lucic would fit into the lineup for the Blues if he were to make the team out of training camp. If there are no injuries on the team, the left side of the ice is well spoken for with Pavel Buchnevich, Holloway, Jake Neighbours, and Alexei Toropchenko occupying the left wing spots.
You could move Toropchenko to the other side of the ice and move a player like Mathieu Joseph to the press box to open up a spot for Micic. A fourth line of Micic-Nick Bjugstad-Toropchenko would be a call-back to the Ryan Reaves fourth line days in St. Louis.
Head coach Jim Montgomery could also lean heavily on Micic's experience as a Stanley Cup winner in 2011. Despite it being less than 10 years since the Blues won the Stanley Cup, there are fewer and fewer Stanley Cup winners on the roster.
Professional tryouts are never a bad way to bring a player in and see if they have one more season left in them. The players usually carry a big name ot them who has had success in previous years. This is an easy, low-risk move for the team.