David Krejci celebrates one of his three goals against the Florida Panthers with teammate Milan Lucic. (Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)

BOLTON (CBS) — Bruins left winger Milan Lucic doesn’t have to look far for someone that can lend advice about how to recover from wrist surgery.

Longtime linemate and Bruins veteran David Krejci went through a similar experience in training camp in 2010 after Krejci’s postseason was famously cut short the previous May by a Mike Richards hit in the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs against the Philadelphia Flyers.

Krejci’s wrist injury required surgery and a lot of rehabilitation over the summer. Lucic had surgery late last May after he was injured in Game 7 of the second round against the Montreal Canadiens.

Lucic admitted Monday that with only a couple of days left before the opening of training camp, he’s not 100 percent. Krejci says that’s nothing to worry about.

“I think he’s had it for four months already and he’s looking good in captains’ practices. I don’t know if he’s 100 percent to go into camp but he’s looking pretty good,” Krejci told CBS Boston before teeing off in the Bruins’ charity golf tournament at The International. “When I had it, it took me a while. It was a few months and then your wrist is really weak so you’ve got to get some strength back. And also you’re going to feel it for a few months in the season and maybe the whole year even.

“I had to tape it for the next two years. A few months was kind of hard, but then your body gets used to it. You can adjust to, not really a pain, but it was a little uncomfortable. But then your body adjusts to it and it was fine. But then you get used to having the wrist taped and you do it and if you don’t, then they kind of mess with your head a little.”

Krejci had 62 points in the 2010-11 regular season, but his 13 goals are a career-low for a full NHL season. He went one 20-game stretch from December to January of that season without scoring a goal. Clearly there was a process by which he had to get more juice on his shot and gain the confidence that he wouldn’t reinjure the wrist.

“Yeah, it got better. Once you start playing games, that means it’s a green light to go in the gym and work that wrist, you know. So it takes a few months,” Krejci said. “You can’t really work it [full steam ahead] right away because you take one good day and then the next day it’s a little sore, so you’ve got to take a little step back. But I don’t think that was anything you could complain about. It’s fine to play, it’s fine to shoot, it’s just not as hard a shot as you want.”

Everyone knows what Krejci did in the 2011 postseason. He led all scorers with 12 goals and 23 points during the Bruins’ run to the Stanley Cup championship. What you might not know is that Krejci tried to play without taping his wrist at the end of the regular season but decided to go with the tape for that magical playoff run.

At the start of the 2011-12 season he again tried to go without the tape, but went back to it.

“So it wasn’t like I couldn’t play but I was like ‘just tape it. It takes two minutes,’” Krejci said.

Krejci felt strong enough to go without tape after the lockout. He again led all postseason scorers with 26 points in 2013. Last season he led the Bruins with 69 points. But the wrist still reminds him about the surgery every now and then.

“At the end of the season last year, it was a little … you feel it once in a while,” he said. “But it’s normal. It’s so many games, so many practices, and you go in the gym and stuff. It’s basically nothing but you feel it for years after a surgery like that.”

Krejci’s confident that if anyone has the courage to fight Lucic this season, they’ll encounter a combatant as strong and as aggressive as Lucic was before the surgery. And more importantly Lucic will find his scoring touch in no time.

“He’ll play the first game, he’ll score two goals and he’ll be fine,” Krejci said.

Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com and also contributes to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on Twitter @TheBruinsBlog.



MORE SPORTS FROM CBS BOSTON

[display-posts category=”sports” wrapper=”ul” posts_per_page=”4?”]