Update 6:42 p.m.

While everyone in New England — including your’s truly — was busy watching the Patriots suffer their season-ending loss to the Broncos, the NHL Department of player safety released its verdict. Milan Lucic will serve a one-game ban for his sucker punch of Kevin Connauton in Glendale on Saturday night. Barring any injury or other circumstance, Lucic will have his homecoming against his former team on February 9th at TD Garden.

And now the video explaining Lucic’s suspension.

—————————————————————————————————————–

It’s been a little while since we checked in with Milan Lucic here on Bruins Daily. The last time we wrote anything about him was back in the summer evaluating his trade to the Kings on Draft Day for Colin Miller, Martin Jones (who was later traded to San Jose for prospect Sean Kuraly and a first round pick in 2016) and Los Angeles’ first round pick this past June.

Forty-seven games into his first season in Southern California, Lucic, who has 29 points on 12 goals and 17 assists, is back under fire again. In Saturday’s game in Arizona, the former Bruin sucker punched Coyotes’ defenseman Kevin Connauton in retaliation for getting slashed on the hand. The ugly incident landed Lucic a game misconduct.

As usual, Lucic, whose x-rays came out negative, sounded off on the incident that led to his ejection and referee Brad Meier, who also ejected the Vancouver native on opening night after making a b-line to Sharks forward Logan Couture with a high hit — again in retaliation of an earlier incident.

“Thankfully x-rays came back negative. I mean, if I don’t react, I don’t think he even calls a penalty,” Lucic told the media according to LA Kings Insider.

“Same guy – Brad Meier. I think this is the fourth time he’s kicked me out of a game. It’s always the same thing with him; It’s if guys can take liberties on me and it’s not a penalty. If I do something, then I’m automatically kicked out of the game. It’s just unfortunate that it is that way with him, and I’ve just got to move on and not get frustrated by the referees in the game.”

On Sunday, the league announced that Lucic will have a hearing for his actions.

Los Angeles’ Milan Lucic will have a hearing today for roughing/sucker punch on Arizona’s Kevin Connauton.

— NHL Player Safety (@NHLPlayerSafety) January 24, 2016

Controversy is obviously nothing new for Lucic. From running over Ryan Miller to spearing players in what Brad Marchand refers to as the ‘fun spot’, and his infamous words to Dale Weise where he said he would “kill him” during the postgame handshake in Game 7 of their second-round series with the Canadiens, Lucic is used to being the center of attention for crossing the fine line at times.

Lucic is scheduled to return to Boston on February 9th — two weeks from Tuesday — for the first time since being traded. The longest suspension for a phone hearing is five games according to the CBA. If he gets a five-game ban, then his on-ice return against his former team at TD Garden will have to wait until the 2016-17 regular season (unless of course the two teams somehow meet in the Stanley Cup Final).