[Darkon]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

Didn't Garnet Hathaway go from four goals to eleven last year playing with Mangiapane and Ryan? Hathaway, who unlike Lucic, had no business hitting double digit goals while Lucic has only fallen short of double digits once in a full season.



Fun fact, Sam Bennett's 5v5 First Assist rate of 0.75 would have ranked second on the Edmonton Oilers last year (800+ minutes). Now Draisaitl at 0.74 isn't meaningfully behind but point is, Bennett is a playmaker. Poor second assist totals don't change that fact. Even Claude Giroux has had seasons where the second assists were not there



The Mangiapane/Ryan combination catapulted Hathaway to a huge payday this offseason. A year ago I didn't think Hathaway even deserved a qualifying offer as an RFA.

Any way you look at it, his linemates have gotten quicker, more skilled, younger.

And the profound improvement in defensemen - Giordano, Brodie, Hanifin, Kylington, Andersson, Valimaki... this should not be overlooked especially for a guy like Lucic who likes to set up netfront and bang in garbage goals and tips.

Hockey's a team sport and Lucic is a decent bottom six forward who is moving to a much better team that has a vacancy for a big body like him in their bottom six.

I have been fairly meh about this whole thing. In fact I’ve gone from angry to now meh. But your point about better defence men and Lucic being a net front presence makes sense and I can hope that maybe Peters is able to use Lucic in a more profitable way there than Edmonton was just simply because Edmonton had a difficult time getting pucks to the net from their defence??? I can hope right???