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Their on-ice battles are debated, dissected, picked apart and criticized. That much has always been true about players in the National Hockey League.

But it’s never clear, of course, what kind of battles these high-level athletes are fighting internally. Or the depth of darkness to their struggles that happen during an 82-game season, during the countless hours spent at the rink practising and training. The highest of highs. The lowest of lows.

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Or how much time they really spend wondering about how they’re perceived by the public, fretting over their careers and their performance, feeling anxious about their spot in the lineup and over-analyzing their role in it all.

Milan Lucic opened the floodgates for that authentic conversation on Saturday’s After Hours broadcast following the Calgary Flames’ 8-4 loss to the visiting Chicago Blackhawks.

In a 15-minute segment — hardly any time at all to go into depth about this topic — host Scott Oake asked Lucic if he felt pressure to make the high-profile trade work for the Flames, especially after James Neal’s prolific start to the 2019-20 season for the Edmonton Oilers.