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Originally Posted by mrdonkey
I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree about the floor being that much lower. You seem to value Lucic as a player far more heavily than I do. I don’t base my valuations on advanced stats or number tracking the way you do, I base them on my limited viewings, and the evaluations of the fan base who watched him most - and in this case Oilers fans have consistently labelled him as a guy who would probably struggle to keep up in the AHL. Which I would largely agree with based on what I’ve seen of him in Edmonton rags.
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I think this is probably your problem here. Advanced metrics are not perfect, but they sure do help to cut through the noise that is created from prejudiced and frequently out of context game-observation. But more to the point, these are the same Oilers fans who were convinced that there were seven Giordanos in their system, that Ty Rattie was a bona fide 30-goal scorer, and that Oscar Klefbom and Adam Larson are Norris calibre top-pair defensemen. This is not exactly what I would consider the best source of information.
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...Perhaps the core of our disagreement here is whether or not you believe Lucic has anything to contribute. I don’t. I think he’s a slow, inconsequential tough guy who will primarily only deal with other tough guys for show, and he will only get worse with time.
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And this is likely because you 1) have (by your own admission) not watched enough of Milan Lucic from which to make an educated assessment; 2) are basing your opinion on cynical and jaded complaints from possibly the worst hockey fans in the country; 3) have not bothered to consider—as near as I can tell—the tremendous impact that toiling away for three years in the purgatory of the worst forward group in the NHL can have on a player's own performance. The fact alone that Lucic's situation has now suddenly VERY dramatically improved would strongly suggest that he is not the same player that was floundering with an AHL lineup in Edmonton. At worst, he is no better than Neal, and the Flames are still a top-five team.