A little lame off ice, Bruins’ Lucic feeling like himself again on it

Lucic/By S. Bradley

TAMPA — As the Bruins’ leading goal-scorer in the regular season, Milan Lucic could stand to put a few more pucks in the net to help Boston’s postseason cause.

Through 14 playoff contests, he has scored just twice — and both goals came in the same game (Game 4 vs. Philadelphia).

Nonetheless, Lucic is doing other things to help the Bruins win. Tonight in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Final at the St. Pete Time Forum, he set up the first goal of the night, threw two hits and also helped keep the Bruins on the attack before their second goal.

Lucic seems to be rounding into form with the Bruins now up 2-1 in the series heading into Game 4 Saturday afternoon at the same venue. He has 2-4-6 totals for the postseason.

“My game’s gotten better as the playoffs have gone on and I’m kind of getting back to where it was in the regular season,” he said after the 2-0 win tonight. “I don’t know what happened. It was almost like I went from one player to someone I didn’t want to be.

“Today I think the main thing, reason why I had success, and every time we were on the ice we had success, was I was keeping my feet moving and I was straight-line making simple plays. No matter who you’re playing, when you do that you give yourself a chance to have success. And all in all, scoring goals and all that stuff is great, but in the end in the playoffs, it’s about getting wins.”

Lucic made a no-look pass from the right half-wall to David Krejci for the game’s first goal just 1:09 into the contest. The playmaker Krejci was a little jealous.

“All their forwards and defensemen, they kind of left me alone at the net,” said Krejci. “So it was great pass. I told him ‘how did he see me?’ He was looking the other way. So it was a great pass. He has great vision.”

Lucic also dumped the puck deep before going for a change to start the sequence that led to the Bruins’ second goal. Lucic is improving even as his health seems to be deteriorating. He hasn’t taken the last two game-day skates for Boston ever since he took a Tyler Seguin shot off the foot at practice last Monday.

He’s been seen limping around off the ice. Luckily for the Bruins, the injury — which no one can reveal, of course, because it’s playoff time — doesn’t seem to be keeping Lucic from coming on strong.