Bruins general manager Don Sweeney’s decision to make the long-rumored reunion finally happen and sign Milan Lucic to a one-year, $1 million contract was met with entirely too much noise off the jump.

Those on one end of the spectrum thought Lucic was still the Lucic of 2011 and that he’d the solution to the Bruins’ constantly overblown toughness problems. And on the other, you had people who were racing to piss their pants over a guy who was getting paid $225,000 more than the NHL’s minimum salary for 2023-24. As if they wouldn’t have spent that money on a different fourth-line wing with a penchant for throwing his weight around and his fists at faces.

Frankly, it was all a bunch of exhausting bull in a never-ending stream of exhausting bull.

But if we learned anything from Wednesday’s win, it’s that the 35-year-old Lucic wants to be more than a nostalgia act for the Black and Gold this season.

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• Beginning his night to the left of Johnny Beecher and Jakub Lauko, Lucic & Co. started their night with a tremendous bang, as the Lucic-Beecher-Lauko trio jumped out a 4-0 edge in on-ice shots. The line was downright menacing, too, with extended zone time and coming through with shift after shift that clearly winded a Blackhawk team that was in town on the second leg of a back-to-back that started in Pittsburgh.

  And by the second period, Lucic found himself promoted up two lines and skating to the left of Pavel Zacha and David Pastrnak. The move came with immediate results for Jim Montgomery’s squad, too, as Lucic came through with the primary helper on the Pastrnak strike that held as the game winner by the night’s end.

  David Pastrnak's first of the season gives Boston a 2-1 lead. Milan Lucic marks his return with the primary assist #NHLBruins pic.twitter.com/AVRrG10bFJ

  — Spoked Z (@SpokedZ) October 12, 2023

  Two-line jumps really won’t be the norm for Lucic this season, of course, and he’d be the first one to tell you as much at this point in his career.

  But when he’s on, he’s on, and Lucic still possesses that all-important intimidation factor as both a forechecker and when he gains the blue line with the puck on his stick and along the walls. At 6-foot-4 and 230 pounds, he’s still an absolute mammoth of a man, and his presence alone can be enough to shake defenders and open things up for his linemates.

  “Absolutely,” Bruins defenseman Brandon Carlo told me when I asked if Lucic is still a guy who strikes fear into defenses from a physical standpoint. “[Lucic is] up there with any of the guys in the league who have that kind of playing style. I can tell you, going back on pucks with that guy coming down your back is not fun at all. So we’ll try and chip him in and let the other defensemen deal with it.”

  But for as valuable as Lucic can be when the juices are flowing like it’s still his first run with the franchise, he’s already proven to be a value-add player on the bench and in the locker room for a Boston club that lost a ton of veteran voices this past offseason.

  “He’s had a really good camp and he’s carrying it over. He came here in tremendous shape. And not only what you guys see on the ice, but the way he’s talking on the bench,” Montgomery said of Lucic. “He’s taken over a real important leadership role of talking about how to build our team game, about the important details. He was saying, ‘It’s the last two minutes of the first and gotta get pucks and get pucks out.’ It’s just good reminders and it means more to teammates when it comes from a player.”

  “Having a guy like [Lucic] come in, you see how much respect he has right away in the league, not only in this room,” Carlo offered. “Off the ice, it’s been amazing because he stepped right in and been vocal, not been shy at all and going about his role. You know, his role can definitely be a little bit more of getting on you at times if your effort isn’t there or something like that. You know, we’re going to respect the heck out of that if he is telling you to do that. So I think he’s done a great job. And he chimed in a couple of times in between periods, and he’s all about keeping the foot on the gas and not stepping back at all.”

  Unless it’s stepping back into a time machine with the return of the chants that a grinning Lucic missed being fueled by every time he took the ice at TD Garden.

  “It was a lot of fun to to hear the ‘Luu’ chants in Boston again,” said Lucic.

  Here are some other thoughts, takeaways, and notes from an Opening Night win at TD Garden…

• A look at Boston’s other vets

  

  BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS – OCTOBER 11: Boston Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery looks on from the bench before the Bruins home opener against the Chicago Blackhawks at TD Garden on October 11, 2023. (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

• Elsewhere on Boston’s wings, Wednesday night came with the B’s debut of James van Riemsdyk.

  Another player with the Bruins on a one-year deal worth $1 million, ‘JVR’ started his night with Pavel Zacha and David Pastrnak, but ultimately bounced around as Montgomery looked to get everybody involved and maybe find some chemistry waiting to come to the surface all at once. But no matter his linemates, you saw some of van Riemsdyk’s ability to generate high-quality looks from in tight and at the net front, and the 6-foot-3 wing had a pair of near-goals early in this contest.

  “I thought van Riemsdyk’s game was really good, and I told him that,” Montgomery noted after the win. ‘I said, ‘You’re not being punished here.’ I said, I’m just trying to spread it around with minutes early in the year. You don’t want to overtax someone with minutes.”

  Morgan Geekie, meanwhile, had a strong debut, and finished with three shots, a plus-2 rating, and wins in six of his eight battles at the dot. Geekie also had a strong neutral-zone pass to Matt Poitras that help set up the Trent Frederic goal that opened the scoring for the Bruins.

  And on the backend, it was a quiet-but-efficient game for newcomer Kevin Shattenkirk. The former Boston University standout finished with a team-high three blocked shots, recorded three shots on goal, and brought a smooth element to the Boston power play. It’ll be interesting to see what the Bruins cook up to get Shattenkirk’s offensive game going, especially with him being the best right-shooting threat the team has had behind Charlie McAvoy really since McAvoy broke in with the big club in 2017.

• Hawks take exception to Carlo hit on Hall

  

  Oct 21, 2022; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Chicago Blackhawks head coach Luke Richardson looks on from the bench during the first period against the Detroit Red Wings at United Center. (Matt Marton/USA TODAY Sports)

• It was an unexpectedly short return to Boston for Taylor Hall, who found himself knocked out of action early in the second period after taking a heavy hit from B’s defenseman Brandon Carlo. And the game had barely ended before the Blackhawks announced that Hall would be considered “week-to-week” with the injury.

  Taylor Hall went down the tunnel after this hit from Brandon Carlo. pic.twitter.com/TrQo7PSfSd

  — Bear With Me (@BearWithMe_Pod) October 12, 2023

  It was a hit that barely came across the radar in real time, but one that left the Blackhawks upset with Carlo.

  “That’s a blindside hit. That’s a guy coming across the ice for sure,” Blackhawks head coach Luke Richardson said following the loss. “That’s what the game is trying to get rid of. I know exactly what it is because I used to do it all the time, but now it’s not in the game. So, we just hope that there’s not a lot of those that we see because they’re not great for anybody.”

  “Yeah, it’s disappointing,” former Bruin Foligno added. “Former teammate, so it’s a hard one to judge, but just seemed like he didn’t have the puck and tough, tough position to put him in. Didn’t really like the hit, but hopefully he’s going to be all right.”

• The Bruins’ MVPs of 2022-23 come to play

  

  Oct 11, 2023; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Boston Bruins goaltender Linus Ullmark (35) makes a save as Chicago Blackhawks left wing Nick Foligno (17) looks for the rebound at TD Garden. (Winslow Townson/USA TODAY Sports)

• ‘Regression’ is the big worry — and to some degree, an inevitability — when it comes to this year’s Bruins.

  The big one people have looked at is in net, with Linus Ullmark coming off what was a downright ridiculous 2022-23 campaign, headlined by a record-tying .938 save percentage.

  Expecting Ullmark to come down from that is simply playing the smart odds (after all, it was a record-tying figure), of course, but if Wednesday was any indication, Ullmark isn’t ready to simply say, “You know what? You’re right, time to revert to a .920 and call it a day just because people expect it.”

  After surrendering a rather ‘meh’ (in real time anyway) wraparound goal to get his season started, Ullmark rallied and finished his first start of the season with 20 saves on 21 shots faced. Ullmark was also credited with stopping four of the five high-danger shots thrown his way by a quick-firing Chicago attack.

  I’m not as ‘down’ on Ullmark’s expected regression as many others are (he’s honestly been this guy or damn close to it for all but one month since joining the Bruins in 2021), but if he plays like that every time he gets the call, the Bruins are going to be A-OK in goal once again.

  At the other end of the rink, David Pastrnak continued to make scoring like extremely easy.

  These guys, along with Charlie McAvoy, are your three pillars to success in 2023-24.

• More thoughts, notes, and nonsense

  

  BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS – OCTOBER 11: Trent Frederic #11 of the Boston Bruins, right, celebrates with Matthew Poitras #51 and Brandon Carlo #25 after scoring a goal during the first period of the Bruins home opener against the Chicago Blackhawks at TD Garden on October 11, 2023 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

• – Going back to Lucic and his fit with Beecher and Lauko, this was about as strong a start as you could’ve hoped for. They dominated in on-ice shots (5-1 was their final line on that front), Lauko drew a penalty, and they were a noticeably up-tempo line. Their ability to grind teams down like that will benefit everybody on this roster, especially if and when they go up against opponents with tired legs or tired brains.

  “It’s great and it opens up the ice so much,” Carlo said of the fourth line’s look and style. “If we can get the puck up to them, you know they’re going to skate as fast as they can to get it over the red line and kind of create a lot of stuff in the offensive zone. With the way that they’re able to cycle the puck, hold onto it as well as use their speed to get in on the forecheck and win some battles. That’s going to result in a lot of offensive-zone time as well as just more opportunities at the netfront. They’re not going to be afraid or shy to get in front of the net and bang some pucks home.”

  – If Trent Frederic’s 17-goal 2022-23 campaign was not a fluke and is instead the new norm, that is a major game changer for the Black and Gold’s middle six. Frederic had an excellent start on that front Wednesday, with a goal on a staggering (by his standards) seven shot attempts.

  – Chicago’s Connor Bedard is the real deal. Man oh man can this kid play. His speed, his shot, and his release are all next-level good. Now, one concern I would have: He’s just so small compared to some of these defensemen he’s going up against, and if someone gets him on the tracks, it’s going to be ugly. Of course, it’s hard to tag what you can barely catch on a speed front, so maybe he’s in the clear.

  – I don’t know who we gotta talk to about this, but TNT absolutely needs to fix their interminably long TV broadcast delay. Covering Wednesday’s game at the Garden, I can confirm to you that the difference between the broadcast and real time was at least 30 seconds, and may have been closer to a full-on minute. With the bed we’ve all decided to sleep in with streaming and live betting, this is an impossible and unacceptable delay. People are getting goal notifications sent to their phone before the puck is even dropped… at the other end of the rink. Hell, it happened to me last year when I was watching a playoff overtime game.

  TNT has an excellent hockey product, but this is by far their worst ‘feature’ and they need to fix it if they’re going to be a go-to source for the biggest games that the sport has to offer.

  And in case you’re wondering, there is a delay on NESN, too. But that delay maxes out at about five to seven seconds. By 2023 standards, the TNT delay is basically an all-day blackout compared to that.

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