Can Milan Lucic be a useful player for the Flames?

Based on tweets, traffic and general fan rage, there was no move made by the Calgary Flames this off-season that caused more hand-wringing than the swap between the Flames and the Edmonton Oilers that brought Milan Lucic to town.

The anxiety is not without good reason. In the 40-year history of the Battle of Alberta, there have been two other trades between Calgary and Edmonton. They both sucked, with the acquisition of Steve Staios by the Flames bearing some spooky parallels to the Lucic trade – Staios was immediately an albatross, leading our own Kent Wilson to infamously proclaim for all to hear that “Staios! Is! Available!”

But as the bard once wrote:

Think about the trade like this: the Flames could fit in James Neal because, to be blunt, his skill level and skill set made him incompatible to their top two lines. There’s nobody that he could displace. Similarly, his style of play and lack of two-way awareness really made him an awful fit for their bottom six. There was really no way for him to live up to the value of his $5.75 million cap hit.

Neal is a player at this point of his career where if he’s not scoring, he doesn’t bring a heck of a lot else to the table – he didn’t bring his vaunted physicality to Calgary, it seems. And at least last season – coming off a pair of long playoff runs – he needed a lot of offensive zone starts and good linemates to produce offensively. The Flames were in a situation where they seemingly would rather give the favourable zone starts to the top scoring line, leaving Neal’s group with less high ground to work with.

Here’s a snapshot of Lucic’s performance and usage since the last lockout:

Aside from a dip in his last season with Boston and his lone campaign with the Kings, Lucic has consistently been a 50%+ Corsi For player and a positive Corsi Rel player, meaning he’s been one of the better possession players on his team.

The last two seasons, as his foot-speed has diminished a bit, the Oilers shifted Lucic more and more into a role playing primarily in the defensive zone on the fourth line (with Kyle Brodziak and Zack Kassian). This is, uncharacteristically, a smart move by the Oilers. Rather than having him start in the offensive zone and then slog his way back to the defensive end to defend, he was starting shifts and defending the front of the net. If not for some horrid puck luck – his PDO dropped throughout his tenure in Edmonton – he probably would’ve had better counting statistics.

Lucic also became a lower-event player in Edmonton, with fewer shots, chances and high-danger chances (in either direction) than in previous stops in his career. When you’re low-event, the bounces can cause larger swings in your numbers.

So what has to happen for Lucic to be useful? Honestly, the bar isn’t set terribly high. If he’s going to be playing on the third line, primarily with Derek Ryan and Andrew Mangiapane, he’ll be getting a decent amount of defensive zone starts. If the role for him is to (a) clear the zone when they win face-offs or (b) muscle the other team’s players away from the slot when they lose, his results in a similar role in Edmonton suggest that he’ll probably be able to hack it.

If the Flames can clearly define a distinct role for Lucic – probably a bottom six body who gets some second unit power play time as a net-front body – maybe he can get his mojo back. If nothing else, his underlying numbers show that he’s not a horrendous player, just an unlucky one.

He’s destined to be a complementary player in Calgary, playing secondary minutes and occasional special teams. He’s not going to be a game-breaker. But there’s nothing about his last few seasons that suggests he can’t still be useful for the Flames.