Clearly, his spot is the slot

Milan Lucic channeled the head and hands of Phil Esposito last night, or perhaps he used his brand spankin' new contact lenses to locate the ruts that ol' Espo carved on Causeway ice back in the Bruins' good old days.

Whatever it was, Lucic, the wide-shouldered sophomore winger, proved to be the one-man/three-goal difference in a 5-4 win over the Atlanta Thrashers at the Garden. Parked in the slot, No. 7-like, he provided loads of jam, and a little bit of touch, in recording his first career hat trick, including the doorstep jam on the winner with only 1:41 remaining.

Take all three of Lucic's shots, put them end to end, and the total yardage would not have come close to a first down. Just as the aforementioned Esposito constructed his Hall-of-Fame career on knowing the art and nuance of positioning in front of the net, the 6-foot-4-inch, 220-pound Lucic found a home all night long within a stick length and wink of Atlanta goalie Johan Hedberg. He parked. He popped. And three times, he lifted high his arms to rejoice, the final time summoning a customary shower of hats and caps all too uncustomary in the Hub of Hockey for too many years.

"It's good to battle . . . you want to get in position to receive the puck," said Lucic, whose game was in a funk throughout training camp and the first week of the season. "Hey, I found a few lanes and had some puck luck."

Perhaps the Bruins also finally found a foothold here in the early going of 2008-09. Who are these Bruins? Tough to tell here with their record a somewhat listless 3-2-0-3 through eight games. They turned in a stinker Thursday at home, a 4-2 loss to the lowly Maple Leafs, on the heels of their 3-2 shootout loss to the Penguins in their home opener Monday. Then they fell behind, 2-0, in the first period last night, and you can just imagine how the paint peeled on the dressing room walls when coach Claude Julien addressed his $55 million wage earners between periods.

"To put it mildly, I told them it was unacceptable, as a group and as individuals," said Julien. "Right now I think it's pretty obvious that we've got a lot of good players who aren't at the top of their game. We can stand here and can pretend [that it's not happening], and sugarcoat it, but . . . "

Laziness and lethargy rarely add up to a winning approach in the NHL, and the Bruins had both in abundance in the first period, when they were embarrassingly outshot, 16-7. Then it all began to turn around early in the second when fourth-liners Stephane Yelle and Shawn Thornton clicked for a goal to cut it to 2-1. The ever-hustling Thornton fired a blind turnaround slapper toward the net, and Yelle, his game finally coming to life, provided the deflection.

Lucic's first, a quick forehand shovel from the front off a Michael Ryder feed, tied it at 2 only 2:20 later. Lucic's second provided a brief 4-3 lead at 5:08 of the third, again the result of being in front and tip-ready when Dennis Wideman fired from the point. The winner had the hulking Lucic mashing in his own rebound off a dish from Marc Savard.

Simple front-of-the-net plays. As he watched television the night before, with the Thrashers playing the Red Wings, Julien noted how the Red Wings have banked Stanley Cups by being tenacious around the net. Winged Wheels Tomas Holmstrom, Johan Franzen, and Henrik Zetterberg have been masters of nasty, productive elbow work around the crease.

"What they do is go to the front of the net," said Julien. "You can't stop what you can't see. Looch got rewarded tonight for wanting to do that - paying the price and standing there. He's got the physique to do it. And if he keeps doing it, he's going to keep scoring goals."

Prodded by teammates who noticed he was constantly wincing while on the ice, Lucic was fitted for contact lenses earlier in the week. He wore them for the first time Thursday, with the Leafs in town, but one of the lenses popped out when he got into a scrum. He made it through the full 60 last night, and saw well enough to land five shots on net, and hit .600 for the evening.

"It's like going from an old TV to high-definition," he said. "That's the perspective I have right now."

Back in the '60s and '70s, Channel 38 carried the Bruins action on TV, with some viewers wrapping strips of aluminum foil around UHF antennas to get a better look. Amid the intermittent snow that showered those black-and-white pictures, Esposito built a dossier that ultimately reached 717 career goals. Lucic this morning is 705 strikes shy of tying the legendary, loping pivot.

But for one night, at a point in the season when the Bruins needed something to start taking shape, Lucic looked right at home where Esposito made his living.

"You have to keep going to those dirty areas," said Lucic. "And most of the time, you're going to get rewarded."

He can see that. Clearly.