Edmonton Oilers: Ranking Players That Are Trending Down This Season

First Player Trending Down

1.  Milan Lucic

Milan Lucic came to the Oilers as a big free agent splash of our GM in kind, as a replacement for Taylor Hall at 1st line LW that could open up the ice for Connor McDavid and whoever else at RW with physical play as the NHL’s premier power forward.

Although he’s had one good season in that role, things have gone downhill quickly for Lucic.  If you thought last year was the bottom of the barrel for Lucic with 10-24-34 with a -12, just look at the first half of this season when he followed that up with 1-7-8 in 40 games with a -11.  That projects out to 2 goals and 16 points on the season.

Ouch.

He’s by far the most prominent boat anchor on the team with a $6 million cap hit for another four seasons after this one.  If he finishes this year worse than the last, expect the Oilers to find some way to get him off the team.  Buyout, waivers, trade for another bad contract, trade of a draft pick to Seattle in the expansion draft to take him; you can bet any and all options will be explored. And it probably won’t be hard to convince Lucic to waive his NMC because I get the sense he wants a fresh start as much as the team wants to move on from him.  It’s not a choice; it is simply mandatory that his cap hit is reduced if not eliminated.  Otherwise, the team simply won’t be able to get better, and it’s that simple.

The bottom line is that the Oilers simply cannot afford to have Lucic performing this bad.  His contract is simply too big on a team already lacking in cap space for him to stick around in the long term.  After all, if they wanted a 4th line grinder, they could sign a different player for a fraction of the cost of what Lucic is costing right now.

Ken Hitchcock has changed his role and reduced his expectations, but what else is a coach supposed to do with a player struggling as bad as Lucic is?  He can’t even generate offense against the softest minutes the NHL has to offer, but other than being a healthy scratch there’s nothing else he can do with him other than playing him on the 4th line. Remember his NMC means Lucic himself has to OK being put on waivers and sent down to Bakersfield, something he probably won’t approve.

Unless he picks it up in the 2nd half of the season, Lucic will be gone from the Oilers after this season by any means necessary.