2020-21 Reasonable Expectations: Milan Lucic

Fun fact: Milan Lucic led the 2011 Stanley Cup-winning Boston Bruins in scoring with 30 goals and 62 points. That was a team featuring three future Hall of Fame locks in Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeron, and Mark Recchi, as well as maybes Tyler Seguin and Brad Marchand.

Nearly 10 years later, “Looch” isn’t close to being the dominant figure he once was. But he found a role down the stretch and in the playoffs with the Flames last season. Let’s take a look at whether he’ll be able to replicate or improve upon his 2019-20 performance next year.

The Bruins made Lucic their second second-round selection, following Yuri Alexandrov, in the 2006 Draft. Unlike Alexandrov, who never really made it out of the KHL (he’s still playing to this day with HC Sochi!), Lucic was a full-time member of the Bruins as a 19-year-old in 2007. He finished 12th in Calder Trophy voting after scoring eight goals and 27 points as a rookie.

Lucic spent eight years in Boston, playing one year alongside Jarome Iginla along the way, scoring 139 goals and 342 goals in 566 total games. In 2015, with one year remaining on his contract before becoming a UFA, Lucic moved on to Los Angeles in a trade that sent Colin Miller, Martin Jones, and the 13th pick in the 2015 Draft (Jakub Zboril) to Boston. Lucic enjoyed a successful single season in Los Angeles, recording a 20-goal season and adding a career-high 35 assists to help the Kings return to the playoffs (remember when the Flames stole the Kings’ playoff spot the year before, in 2014-15?).

As an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his career, Lucic attracted a ton of interest and had plenty of options. He eventually opted to go for a primo gig playing next to Connor McDavid, signing a now-infamous seven-year, $42 million contract (no-movement clause included!) with the Edmonton Oilers. Of course, Lucic actually had a pretty good debut season with the Oilers, scoring 23 goals and 50 points, but he quickly fell off after that, scoring just 10 goals the next year and six in 2018-19.

In the summer of 2019, new Oilers general manager Ken Holland sought to free his team from the remaining four years of Lucic’s contract. Meanwhile, down in Calgary, Flames GM Brad Treliving had grown discontent with pricey winger James Neal just a year into his five-year pact. The two teams opted to get together in a swap of negative-value assets, with Neal heading up to Edmonton in exchange for Lucic (with $750,000 annually retained by Edmonton) and a conditional third-round draft pick.

Neal got off to a white-hot start in Edmonton, recording seven goals in the first four games of the 2019-20 season. It took Lucic 28 games to score his first goal as a Flame. Suffice to say, the Flames took a fair amount of heat from the media and fans in the first half of the year. But things started to change down the stretch, particularly after Geoff Ward took the Flames’ reigns as the new head coach. Neal reverted to his old Calgary form, failing to score a goal in the 13 regular season games he played in the 2020 calendar year (although he did score a hat trick on New Years’ Eve). Meanwhile, Lucic improved his play, scoring four goals and nine points in his last 15 games. Ultimately, Lucic finished the year with eight goals and 20 points in 68 regular season games, adding a goal and five assists in 10 playoff games.

Lucic isn’t getting any faster, but he’s still a smart passer with a hard shot. The Oilers probably made a mistake trying to play him with the lightning-quick McDavid, and, even at $5.25 million, he’s overpaid in basically every situation. But let’s not automatically conflate having a bad contract with being a bad player.

The thing is, Lucic isn’t a bad player. If the Flames had him at a $1.5 million salary, he would probably be perceived as a pretty good bargain. He’s a genuinely strong defensive play driver at even strength and he’s a solid net-front presence on the power play. To maximize his ability in these situations, the Flames should probably continue deploying him on the second power play unit and on a line with a defensive centre like Derek Ryan.

When Lucic is on the ice, the other team usually doesn’t generate much offense. Last season, only the two Marks—Jankowski and Giordano—allowed fewer expected goals against-per-60 at even strength. Lucic probably doesn’t have the boots to play consistently on the penalty kill, but he already provides the Flames plenty of value as a defensive asset at five-on-five. This isn’t anything new, either: Lucic’s defensive results were strong during his tenures in Edmonton, Los Angeles, and (at times) in Boston.

On multiple occasions, Lucic has credited Ward for rejuvenating his play in Calgary. The results certainly back that up: Lucic scored a total of zero goals and four assists in his 25 games under former Flames coach Bill Peters before adding eight goals and 16 points in his 43 games under Ward. Over an 82-game season, that’s a 15-goal, 31-assist pace. Lucic threw 198 hits last year, a 239-hit pace over a full year.

Are 15 goals and 31 points a stretch for Lucic in 2020-21? Well, probably, considering the season almost certainly won’t be 82 games. In a 56-game season, which seems to be more likely at this point, that pace correlates to totals of 10 goals and 21 points. Factoring in the inevitability of the age curve, that might be a little high for Lucic. But a lot also depends on his linemates. Lucic found great chemistry with Sam Bennett and Dillon Dube in the playoffs, but he also did well in the regular season with Ryan as his centre. If those lines stop clicking, we might see Lucic endure another 27-game goalless drought.

Either way, Lucic will probably continue hitting everything that moves and will still probably be used as a pillar on the man advantage—last year, he tied Matthew Tkachuk for fourth on the team with five power play goals. For now, let’s pencil in Lucic for eight goals and 19 points in a full 56-game season. (Just for fun, we’ll say Neal scores 10 goals… and 16 points).