Oilers now hoping for a motivated Milan Lucic next season
After surely struggling to find trade interest, the Edmonton Oilers are now hoping for a rejuvenated Milan Lucic next season.
After making the playoffs and winning a first round series in 2016-17, the Edmonton Oilers fell back down toward the bottom of the Western Conference this past season. One of the poster boys for that drop-off was winger Milan Lucic, who had 16 fewer points (34) and 13 fewer goals (10) in the same number of games (all 82).
Oilers general manager Peter Chiarelli supported Lucic publicly after a rough season, and Lucic himself said the right things about hoping for a rebound next season. But more recently the Oilers have been rumored to be shopping Lucic, with little in the way of news on that front.
Lucic has five years left on the seven-year, $42 million deal he signed with Edmonton in 2016, with perfectly balanced $6 million cap hits each year. That money commitment limits the suitors for Lucic anyway, and his fresh production decline has apparently made a trade next to impossible.
Perhaps in an effort to spur trade talks heading into the start of the draft Friday night, Chiarelli now seems resigned to keeping Lucic and crossing his fingers.
"I think Milan’s a pretty high-character individual. He has to have a good summer,” the GM said in Dallas ahead of the NHL draft. “Really, conditioning for him is not really an issue. He has to be in the right frame of mind. He’s a proud guy and we expect to have him back at a better level than he was last year."
Lucic may be starting a decline phase 30 years old. Over the last 44 games of last season, including a 29-game scoring drought, he had just one goal and seven assists with a -18 plus/minus. It’s easy to point to some sort of injury affecting his production, but Lucic did not miss any games and the only reported issue he had was an illness that kept him out of a practice in March.
A look at Lucic’s puck possession metrics (Corsi, Fenwick, PDO) doesn’t show a notable decline from 2016-17 to 2017-18. But he did shoot 28 fewer times this past season (147 shots on goal) compared to 2016-17, and his shooting percentage fell off a cliff from 13.1 percent to a career-low 6.8 percent.
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Lucic’s contract is still likely to look bad by the time it ends. But with a positive correction in his shooting percentage next season, 20 goals will be back in play as the Oilers seek some sort of consistent offense that doesn’t come from Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl.