The month of June is genuinely one of my favourite in the hockey calendar. Not only will the Stanley Cup be awarded, but the NHL draft and the free agent courting period all happen. With 29 teams soon to be part of the “not good enough… club, there’s no shortage of reasons why June is such an active month for player movement.
Yesterday the TSN Insiders reported on happenings around NHL head offices and they dropped a tidbit about Milan Lucic that certainly piqued the interest of Oiler fans. As Pierre LeBrun reported on the state of negotiation between the Los Angeles Kings and Lucic, he also said this:
I still believe the LA Kings want to sign Milan Lucic, and I think Milan Lucic wants to remain a King. But as we get closer to July 1st Milan Lucic has grown open to the possibility of having to go to market, and I think there’s a couple teams we can count on to make an offer. His hometown Vancouver Canucks will make an offer and so will, I believe, the Edmonton Oilers – Hey, there are worse things than riding shotgun for Connor McDavid. I believe Lucic will be open and warm to an offer from his former GM Peter Chiarelli in Edmonton, but right now he wants to stay a King if he can get a deal done.
This created quite the stir online yesterday and as it should. Milan Lucic is a big ticket, maybe the biggest ticket, in free agency this year. He’s a veritable star in the NHL and someone many teams will want to have. His reputation precedes him everywhere he goes. He’s huge, he has decent hands, he’s mean, and he knows it. His enduring legacy in the NHL wont be his on-ice accolades though. No, he will be remembered as the man that inspired scouts of his era to take the longest of shots on big men with marginal offense hoping that Prospect X would become the next Milan Lucic.
Well so far, it seems, there can be only one Milan Lucic and now the Oilers have been formally linked to him by a connected member of the media. This scenario does pose an issue for me for a couple of reasons but let’s start out with the positive of having Milan Lucic on the Oilers next years.
Lucic is about to turn 28 years old, he’s 6’3… and 230 pounds of brutality. He’s a high percentage shooter with a career 14.8% over a 9 year career with more than 1000 career shots. He hits people like crazy. He lead the Kings in hits this past season with 244. He lead the Bruins in hits from 2010-2015 and it would have been from 2008 except he only played 50 games one season.
Edmonton under Chiarelli has added Kassian, Maroon, Gryba, and Lucic would be yet another punishing large man to change the makeup of an Oiler team that gained the reputation of being small and too easy to push around.
Here are the negatives with adding Lucic:
1) He will be expensive and his cost value may not make sense on a post-McDavid-ELC Oilers.
2) It will require making even more moves.
Milan Lucic’s last contract was for an annual average of 6 million dollars per year, but he’s actually making 6.5 million this year. As he hits free agency with a name for himself made as a Stanley Cup champion, a fighter, a physical freak, and a scorer he will be able to command top dollar on the open market and that’s his right. He’s earned the right to ask for that money.
However, he’s almost certainly past the peak of his scoring and even though he’s young enough that age wont likely take another step away from him on any reasonably lengthed contract, he is probably not about to get better than what he is.
So what is he?
He’s 59th among forward in the NHL with at least 2000 minutes 5v5 over the last 3 seasons at 1.92 points per 60 minutes played. That’s one very good scorer. He produces quite well. Here’s the problem, if the Oilers take on Lucic, they will almost certainly have to move one of Taylor Hall or Benoit Pouliot.
As far as scorers go, there’s no question that Hall is superior to Lucic. Trading Hall to make room for Lucic would be insane though. The reality of a Hall trade is that it would have to be for an elite defenseman or it doesn’t make a lick of sense, but I digress.
The real scoring comparable for Milan Lucic on the Oilers is Benoit Pouliot.
2012-16, Pouliot | Lucic:
— Jonathan Willis (@JonathanWillis) June 3, 2016
5v5 P/60: 1.98 | 1.95
5v4 P/60: 3.45 | 3.05
If EDM goes after Lucic, its not because he upgrades the offence.
Penalties taken - drawn at 5v5, 2012-16:
— Jonathan Willis (@JonathanWillis) June 4, 2016
Pouliot: 43 taken, 40 drawn (-3)
Lucic: 68 taken, 36 drawn (-32)https://t.co/hnTNdqIQrG
As Willis points out, there’s not a lot of difference scoring-wise between Lucic and Pouliot. If Lucic commands 6.5 million on the market, that means Edmonton would be paying 2.5 million more than their current situation just for more physicality.
Since we know McDavid is going to be paid handsomely on his next contract, every dollar matters. Every penny not tied up in forwards needs to go into fixing this rotten defense. Every decision Edmonton makes has to be carefully planned around the reality that McDavid gets to essentially choose his next contract size. If he wants to be generous it might only cost Edmonton 8 million a year. If he wants it could be 11 million. It’s really his call.
2 million might not seem like a lot now, but it might be the difference between keeping Draisaitl or Hall in two years.
I worry about how much of the Cap Lucic will command this summer on an Oiler team that needs to find ways to pay Draisaitl, McDavid, two new competent defenders, and keep a good chunk of the forwards they’ve spent years at the bottom of the standings collecting. For those that think wholesale change to the core is required, I can only come back to the basic needs the team has had for years. The core isn’t rotten in Edmonton, it’s incomplete. There are no defenders in the group who have established themselves in the NHL as elite level talent.
Ultimately Edmonton doesn’t need Milan Lucic. He isn’t the answer to their particular problems. And, if they should get him, it will require more transactions to shuffle the pieces around to make him work in the Cap structure of the team. Then of course those moves must also actually fix Edmonton’s problems.
Signing Lucic creates a lot of work for not very many good reasons. Well, unless the Oilers create a rather large hole at LW before free agency begins while fixing that defense…
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