Quote:
Originally Posted by Aarongavey
I think Neal's biggest problem is speed. He lacks the speed to get into areas where he can actually score and I doubt that his footspeed will improve.
It is not exactly uncommon for players, particularly players who lack footspeed, to drop off substantially at a certain point in their career in terms of shooting percentage. Before the snowflakes jump down my throat, I am not saying that Neal is Lucic, but Lucic was a career 14.5% shooter going into last season. Last year he somehow dropped off to a 6.8% shooting percentage. That shooting percentage should have normalized, however it is worse this year (3.1%). If it had normalized at his career shooting percentage Milan Lucic would have the following numbers over the past two years.
17/18 - 21 goals 25 assists 45 points
18/19 - 5 goals 5 assist for 10 points (a 14 goal 14 assist pace).
For some reason last year a 29 year old forward suddenly lost the ability to score on the same percentage of his shots as he had throughout his career. There was no logical reason to expect Lucic to have this drop off, the previous 4 seasons he had a 14.3% shooting percentage, right around his career average. For some reason he has dropped off over the past 75 games (first 36 games of last season he had a 13.2% shooting percentage).
But I do concede the point that if Neal shoots at his traditional shooting percentage he will score more goals and would likely be a 20 goal scorer. Hopefully he is still a 11.8% shooter and not a 4% shooter.
|
What the hell is a snowflake?
Have we seen Lucic dangle through a defender and put himself in alone like we saw Neal in Columbus the other day?
Sure that's only one example, but from what I gather from Edmonton Lucic isn't even getting the chances.
But that's a good example the other way for sure, and it's possible it's over for the player, but I'm going to assume it's neither of the extremes; he goes on a bender and scores 25 this year or that it's just done for the player and they have an albatross.