The Oilers winger was heavily criticized for his poor performance last year, but a more in-depth look at his play leads to believe he can return to form next season.

Milan Lucic had a rough season, not unlike the Oilers as a whole. The 30-year old winger only scored 34 points, a career low in a 60+ games season, and many people are already saying it’s the beginning of the end for him. With his trade value at an all-time low and his contract essentially buyout-proof, what can Oilers fan expect from the power forward going into the season?

First, we have to understand why Lucic’s production fell so drastically from the 50 points he scored in his first season with the Oilers, so let’s start with his even-strength performance. Surprisingly, Lucic actually scored more at 5-v-5 last season (27 points) than he did the year prior (25). His underlying numbers tell a similar story.

Lucic hasn’t slowed down at even-strength. In fact, his numbers were very similar in his two years with the Oilers, which were both better than his Kings numbers. 16 of his 18 5-v-5 goals came from the slot, so it’s encouraging to see him receive more and more passes in that area and the percentage of shots coming from the slot increasing over the last three years, reaching almost 50% last season.

Powerplay was a whole different story for him and the team, however. In 2016-17, Lucic scored 25 of his 50 points on the man advantage, filling the net-front role for the 5th best powerplay in the league. The Oilers’ special teams then had a drastic fall down to the basement of the league, finishing dead last not only in efficiency but also in their abilities to draw penalties. Only two Oilers players, Connor McDavid (20 points) and Leon Draisaitl (11), were able to score double-digit powerplay points, something 189 players accomplished league-wide, an average of about six per team. Lucic’s performance obviously suffered as his team struggled.

His ice-time on the man advantage went down nearly 45 seconds per game and over 60 minutes for the whole season. This drastic decrease in opportunity obviously had a huge impact on his performance. His point total fell from 25 to only seven and he saw a decrease of over 50% in many key metrics. Considering his role is to screen the goalie and capitalize on rebounds and deflections, leading the team in both categories, his performance greatly depends on his teammates generating opportunities for him as he doesn’t drive the play himself most of the time. With two superstars in McDavid and Draisaitl handling the playmaking and with most of the players from the 2016-17 unit that ranked 5th in the NHL still on the squad, there is no reason the Oilers can’t field a strong unit once again this season. There’s nowhere to go but up anyway, right?

Another issue for Lucic seems to be a simple case of bad puck luck. Lucic converted on fewer than 10% of his shots only three times in his career: his rookie season, the lockout-shortened 2012-13 and last season, where he shot a career-worst 6.8%. This lack of finishing touch showed in our expected goals model as well. As mentioned earlier, Lucic was getting about the same amount of chances at even-strength than he did in his first year in Alberta, which led to a similar result in expected goals for (13.4 in 2016-17, 13.2 last season). His even-strength goal total, however, fell from 11 to seven, more than six below his expected production. With a history of being a 10%+ shooter (13.7% for his career) and a steady performance in getting quality chances, it’s not unrealistic to expect him to go back to his regular form and score double-digits goals at even strength and even hit 20 total goals if the powerplay can get back on track.

Milan Lucic isn’t a perfect player, far from it. He’s 30 years old, on an expensive, long-term deal and will likely never be a point-per-game type player. He is, however, a reliable forward who missed only 10 games since 2010-11 and has a long history of being a 50-point scorer, which makes last season seem more like an aberration than a new norm, especially after a deeper dive into his play. Totals around 50 points and 20 goals are a reasonable expectation if the Oilers’ powerplay can return to form and Lucic stays on the first unit.

(Photo by Rocky W. Widner/NHL/Getty Images)