Quote:
Originally Posted by Bingo
The Oilers signed him at the worst possible time.
You could see three things were happening in the NHL.
1) More young players were entering on entry level contracts to give teams more balance under the salary cap
2) This youth and the recent tend towards young skill meant the game was speeding up dramatically season to season.
3) Concussion fears and political correctness were pretty much pushing fighting out of hockey.
As a result Lucic lost his entire game in 24 months.
The Oilers went out and bought a betamax instead of a VCR.
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Yeah, that's probably right, but still, I mean, even the slowest player in the world Jaromir Jagr was a fairly effective hockey player as recent as beginning of last season, primarily due to making good use of his physical tools. When Lucic was at his peak he was really strong on the puck which is something that in theory should bring him some success even in this new era. Or was he really that bad at everything else and had hockey IQ like a brick wall even at his peak? I can't say I ever followed him enough to know too much about him.
After all, there are a few players around age 30 who have been able to adjust fairly well to the new NHL. If Lucic ends up in the low 20s points wise that has to be one of the more dramatic drops in effectiveness ever for an NHL player. I'm just so happy that it's happening to the Oilers.