Well, this is gonna be a tough one. There’s no preamble to frame this in a way that’ll put anyone at ease so let’s just get to it…. yadda-yadda-yadda… 2018-19 season in review: @Milan Lucic!!

By all accounts, this was a train-wreck of a season for Lucic. Tied for the third-highest salary amongst Oilers forwards, but while he and Nuge both incurred a $6.0 million cap hit last year, Milan finished miserably behind Sweet Ryan’s very very nice 69 points. He was ninth in even strength time and had powerplay opportunities, finishing seventh on the team on the man advantage. So how much worse did it look under the advanced counts’ magnifying glass?

(All counts are at Even Strength)

Admittedly, these aren’t nearly as ugly as you’d expect. He was one of the few Oilers with a Corsi percentage north of 50 percent while on the ice, and helped create just as many high danger chances that were allowed, while also having the goalies look good. Lucic created chances, but just couldn’t finish them.

But, as always, these numbers can only tell so much of the story, so let’s look at how Milan performed relative to the rest of the team:

Honestly, this is shocking. He wasn’t nearly as much of an offensive black hole as you’d expect (certainly more than I expected), being more of a catalyst for the offence than a hindrance, and creating a stellar amount of high danger chances. It just doesn’t seem right. But I ran the report three or four times just to make sure, but it’s right.

But still, the goals weren’t there and neither was the point totals. And for a $6 million man, “doing your best out there” just isn’t good enough, particularly on a team that’s nearly capped out and underperforming.

How bad exactly has the fall been for Lucic since the Oilers signed him in the summer of ’16?

Catastrophic. That’s falling off a cliff without even trying to turn around and try and grab the ledge.

Lucic is signed for four more years, with a $6 million cap hit. Not to mention that he has a full No Movement Clause, which will cause some issues sooner than one would like.

So as far as his age, cap hit, and point production are concerned, who does Lucic compare to some of his contemporaries around the league?

Those are a lot of names and a lot of numbers, and I’m certainly not going to get into all of them, but for interested minds, there they are. The purpose is to glean numbers from players who are making around the same amount as Lucic, while looking at the entire spectrum from the age when the Oilers signed him, to when the contract will expire and what we can maybe extrapolate and see how hard the fall from grace has been (and might be) for Milan.

Based on age, games played last year, and pay grade, Okposo or Staal are his closest comparables and they’re actually (depressingly) close to one another as far as production is concerned–though Staal was hurt and could be considered more versatile as a two-way centre. There are players who are outperforming for their age, or contract (I didn’t even bother to include guys like Nathan MacKinnon, Filip Forsberg, or David Pastrnak), but with his pay scale, reasonable expectations for fans would be content with Van Riemsdyk or even Henrique numbers. So Lucic is still 10-15 goals and/or 20-30 points short of what could be deemed acceptable output. He started out as a Brock Nelson and seems to be backsliding towards a David Backes at best, and a Ryan Kesler at worst.

So, what’s the deal? His individual counts were decent so where’d all the production go? Does it have something to do with the linemates Milan played with?

Let’s find out (Again, all counts are at Even Strength):

Even Strength TOI Together: 237:54

If I would’ve had to guess who Lucic’s number one linemate was, it would’ve taken me at least a starting lineup worth of names before I would’ve landed on Kassian. Either way, these two had decent chemistry as far as the advanced counts go, with a positive percentage of Corsi chances considering how often they started out of the offensive zone (51 starts in the o-zone, and 83 apiece in the neutral and defensive zones FWIW) but an egregiously low shooting percentage. Allowed a few too many high danger chances, but the goalies performed well considering how often the face-offs were in their zone.

Even Strength TOI Together: 235:18

Again, would never have guessed this would’ve been Lucic’s second-most-frequent skating partner, but here we are. And just like Kassian, these two also created just as many good chances, with a similar frequency of o-zone starts, most often starting in the defensive zone (52-90-99), while the goaltender performed well despite a disparity in high danger chances. But that shooting percentage is just abysmal, so there can’t be any surprise that goals were nowhere to be found in the back of the opponents net. Still, they didn’t allow a lot in their own net.

Even Strength TOI Together: 219:10

The only linemate Lucic seemed to have the inverse of results with: unspectacular possession counts, but an insanely high shooting percentage. So these two could score goals together, while once again the goalies didn’t suffer behind them. Maybe Looch wasn’t the boat anchor playing with Nuge that it might’ve seemed…

Even Strength TOI Together: 161:13

Really the only pedestrian linemate for Milan. An uninspiring Corsi percentage with no real goals to show for it and the goaltender really got hung out to dry despite one of the higher amount of o-zone starts.

Even Strength TOI Together: 136:19

Though he’s long gone, it’s interesting to see much of the same here: an unexpectedly good Corsi percentage (in fact, almost elite) coupled with a comedically low shooting percentage, but the goalie looking really good behind them.

You look at that picture, and it fills you with a sense of disappointment. Because Milan is such an easy player to want to cheer for. You hear Rogers Place erupt in a loud “LOOOOOOCH” howl whenever the guy scores a goal, drops the gloves, or even throws a big hit. It’s just so hard to embrace a guy who is perceived to be one of the dead-weight contracts that’s wasting Connor’s prime years.

It’s also hard to make sense of Lucic’s season based on his counts: by all measures he was doing his job, getting to high danger areas and creating chances but for whatever reason he just couldn’t finish regularly. He started a lot in the defensive zone, but rarely got pinned in his own end, never put his goalie in a bad situation and actually pushed the puck up the ice, but a relatively low personal and a criminally low on-ice shooting percentage yielded next to zero goals. Which, yes, is the whole point of this and at Lucic’s price-point, the result has to be goals, particularly when the Oilers’ depth scoring units are starved for goals. But, considering that the chances were there, but the results weren’t, can it be fair to say that Looch was just snake-bitten?

That’s the optimistic look. The pessimistic view (and, perhaps the realistic one) is that Lucic is signed to one of the worst value contracts in the NHL, and that even though his signing bonuses make it almost buy-out proof, some fans would be willing to bite the bullet just to free up the roster spot and sign a player to 1/6 the value of Lucic’s cap hit and contribute close to (or even exceed) what he’s delivering.

I personally think that would be ill-advised, as would be trading for Loui Eriksson (especially if a “sweeter” would need to be thrown in), a player who is two years older and was less effective in terms of possession and generating scoring chances than Milan last year and has struggled with injuries the last two out of three years. But what it comes down to is NHL Expansion. He has a NMC, that cannot be ignored, so he cannot be on the Oilers’ roster come the summer of ’21, because he’ll be protected during the Expansion Draft for the new Seattle franchise. At his current rate, it’s absurd to think that he would be worthy of that. So the question at this point really isn’t if Lucic should be moved, but a matter of when (and, frankly, HOW??). 

I truly believe that Oilers fans still want to love and embrace Milan Lucic, he’s just made it really really hard to do.