Milan Lucic could be coming back to his first NHL home, according to multiple reports out of Canada.

The 35-year-old Lucic is set to become a UFA on Saturday but the Calgary Flames had given him permission to speak with other teams. The Athletic’s Rick Dhaliwal, based in Lucic’s hometown of Vancouver, reported that there will indeed be a reunion.

If the deal does happen, one would presume that it would be a short-term deal for a fraction of his salary last season, which was the final year of a seven-year contract with an AAV of $6 million.

Lucic is no longer the same player who scored 30 goals while riding shotgun with David Krejci earlier in his career. Last season with the Flames, he average just over 11 minutes of icetime and notched 7-12-19 totals and was minus-13. He’s six years removed from his last 20-goal season, when he scored 23 goals as a member of the Edmonton Oilers.

But he remains a physical player who is still one of the fiercest fighters in the league, a skill that’s not as prized as it once was in the NHL but one that could be useful for the B’s if they are going to employ some of their skilled youth, as GM Don Sweeney alluded to on Tuesday.

Some of Lucic’s more marketable skills may have waned, but he remained a well-respected teammate in Calgary and it would not hurt to have him around to have the backs of the younger players while playing a more limited bottom six role.

As one of the more popular players of the 2011 Stanley Cup team, it could appease a large swath of the fandom that had been clamoring to bring him back. It never made sense when he was carrying such a big price tag, but it would be more reasonable now.

And perhaps a return to Boston could rejuvenate Lucic’s offensive game as well. Whatever happens, a Lucic signing could give the B’s a sizable bang for not a lot of bucks.