[CP Story] Makings Sense of the Lucic Trade

[ricardodw]

Stats can be used various ways... but to suggest that Neal had better linemates on the Flames than Lucic did with the Oilers is debatable:

Neal's even strength Line Mates and time spent with them:

teammate TOI_tog
MARK.JANKOWSKI 337.2
NOAH.HANIFIN 275.7
RASMUS.ANDERSSON 261.98
SAM.BENNETT 247.05
TJ.BRODIE 239.88
TRAVIS.HAMONIC 213.85
MARK.GIORDANO 208.43
MIKAEL.BACKLUND 159.97
DEREK.RYAN 146.37
OLIVER.KYLINGTON 130.35
JOHNNY.GAUDREAU 106.67
JUUSO.VALIMAKI 105.93
AUSTIN.CZARNIK 105.57
MATTHEW.TKACHUK 101.72
SEAN.MONAHAN 100.53
ANDREW.MANGIAPANE 74.4
MICHAEL.FROLIK 65.65
DILLON.DUBE 59.93
MICHAEL.STONE 59.35
DALTON.PROUT 55.7
ELIAS.LINDHOLM 42.72
OSCAR.FANTENBERG 25.83
ALAN.QUINE 24.1
GARNET.HATHAWAY 7.65

Lucic

teammate TOI_tog
DARNELL.NURSE 332.53
ADAM.LARSSON 327.75
KRIS.RUSSELL 286.23
OSCAR.KLEFBOM 243.35
ZACK.KASSIAN 236.88
KYLE.BRODZIAK 234.32
MATT.BENNING 231.23
RYAN.NUGENT-HOPKINS 211.9
ALEX.CHIASSON 158.25
RYAN.STROME 133.87
JESSE.PULJUJARVI 126.67
LEON.DRAISAITL 119.65
KEVIN.GRAVEL 115.58
CONNOR.MCDAVID 98.57
COLBY.CAVE 87.3
KAILER.YAMAMOTO 85.3
JOSH.CURRIE 79.43
CALEB.JONES 72.12
ANDREJ.SEKERA 71.03
TY.RATTIE 65.42
JASON.GARRISON 63.97
DRAKE.CAGGIULA 55.52
SAM.GAGNER 43.37
BRANDON.MANNING 41.68
JUJHAR.KHAIRA 32.25
EVAN.BOUCHARD 27.08
ALEX.PETROVIC 25.17
COOPER.MARODY 23.63
RYAN.SPOONER 20.83
BRAD.MALONE 16.67
PATRICK.RUSSELL 14.63
CHRIS.WIDEMAN 13.62
TOBIAS.RIEDER 6.07


Maybe it was all Neal's fault but Jankowski is often being added as a sweetener in getting a great return for Brodie.

For what it's worth Nurse is the Oilers best d-man and was leader of shared ice time with Lucic.

Also interesting that with Larsson/Nurse/Kassian Lucic did not spend a lot of time as the lone physical presence. Maybe he made his linemates bigger and tougher. Be interesting if Nurse misses him.

[Bingo]

^ the problem with doing it that way is you don't take into account the times a weak player played with one of them with a strong player.

So ... Mark Jankowski total is one thing, but you need to pair out the times it was Jankowski and Tkachuk, or Jankowski and Gaudreau in order to really find where he was put with players or not.

The other issue is how quickly the Oilers roster dives after their big three forwards. Who's the Oilers 4th best forward? In Calgary stopping at 3 is silly because you omit all of Backlund, Tkachuk and possibly even guys like Bennett and Ryan.

[Bingo]

If you look at the Flames top five forwards; Gaudreau, Monahan, Lindholm, Backlund and Tkachuk ...

Neal played with at least one of them for 41% of his ice time last year.

[SeanCharles]

Originally Posted by Bingo

If you look at the Flames top five forwards; Gaudreau, Monahan, Lindholm, Backlund and Tkachuk ...

Neal played with at least one of them for 41% of his ice time last year.

Yea Neal was a major problem..

I never knew where to slot him in because he didnt fit in anywhere really.

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by Bingo

If you look at the Flames top five forwards; Gaudreau, Monahan, Lindholm, Backlund and Tkachuk ...

Neal played with at least one of them for 41% of his ice time last year.

The major difference in the conception of this trade is that with Lucic you more or less know what you will get. With Neal however, Fans can still hope that he will be better next season.

[DeluxeMoustache]

^ if Ricardo is suggesting that
- Jankowski (14 G, 32 points as a 3rd liner with no PP time)
and Bennett are not materially better than Brodziak (9 points) and Kassian (whose 26 points flatter him due to the 14 coming with McJesus and Draisaitl... pretty sure he didn’t drive most of that)
- whatever Oilers D rounded out the lineup on ice are no worse than Flames D

... well, it’s not even worth starting a conversation

[Displaced Flames fan]

Originally Posted by Bingo

If you look at the Flames top five forwards; Gaudreau, Monahan, Lindholm, Backlund and Tkachuk ...

Neal played with at least one of them for 41% of his ice time last year.

That says a lot. Really puts his performance in perspective.

And frankly, you could add Ryan in as a 6th in my opinion. If you were playing with Derek Ryan after Christmas your line was getting plenty of chances and giving up "jack squat" to quote Matt Foley.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by Bingo

If you look at the Flames top five forwards; Gaudreau, Monahan, Lindholm, Backlund and Tkachuk ...

Neal played with at least one of them for 41% of his ice time last year.

I get 32.4%.

[GioforPM]

https://frozenpool.dobbersports.com/players/milan-lucic

https://frozenpool.dobbersports.com/players/james-neal

Note: sometimes these are off.

[GioforPM]

double

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

I get 32.4%.

783 total five on five minutes.

463 minutes without the big five players
134 minutes with one of the big five players
187 minutes with two of the big players

So that's 59%, 17% and 23% or 41% with at least one.

[Bingo]

More detail ...

Times when he had 2 of them (187 minutes)

76 minutes with Gaudreau and Monahan ... xGF 42.2%
72 minutes with Backlund and Tkachuk ... xGF 44.8%
19 minutes with Gaudreau and Lindholm ... xGF 75.7%

He dragged the top two lines down badly when he lined up with them (5-6 games each)

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Displaced Flames fan

That says a lot. Really puts his performance in perspective.

And frankly, you could add Ryan in as a 6th in my opinion. If you were playing with Derek Ryan after Christmas your line was getting plenty of chances and giving up "jack squat" to quote Matt Foley.

If you include Ryan he moves from 41% to 58%

Another interesting one ...

242 minutes with Sam Bennett 53.3% CF
541 minutes without Sam Bennett 49.3% CF

[Split98]

Great article Bingo. After reading this, and a little time... it's a more palatable trade when you consider what this article points out: this mistake goes back to signing Neal. Good on Tre for rectifying things as quickly as he has - but that mistake is still going to sting for 4 years.

I'll take Lucic at $5M+ before I'd take another year of last-year Neal who couldn't have been a worse showing if he tried (which, he didn't). We accepted a lot of off-season excuses, but we also had to wonder how much of Neal's production had to do with not getting his 1st line time he wanted. I think I ignored that narrative largely in hopes that the Real Deal was going to be a great Flame - but if there's any meat on those bones he couldn't be going to a better place!

Another narrative last year was Smith's terrible goal-tending (anyone notice that?) paired with his often a smarmy interviews. He was always talking about all the good things he did at some point in the season - almost apologizing for himself. That always increased my distaste of the struggling goalie, and I think that mindset is something him and his good buddy Neal might share. Neal had a lot of excuses all season, but I don't know that he was the type to look in the mirror and come back stronger. That he was shipped out for our rivals problem after being scratched for Game 5 tells me that I might not be too far off. So I couldn't be happier that Smith and Neal are gone, and that 'leadership' is somewhere else. Hopefully, accountability is something that Lucic brings - and hearing from Iggy gives me hope that is what we're going to be seeing.

It's going to be a very odd trade in hindsight I think. If we get an effective Lucic, I don't know that slow-ass Neal is going to pot enough McDavid gimmies to make up for it. But I'm not a fan of this question mark heading into the expansion draft, relieving the Oilers of this burden and taking on the burden ourselves all to get away from 4 years of Slow Heel Neal.


Hopefully we traded a (I'm guessing) a sulky entitled over-paid winger for an upgrade in the locker room. Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to it more than I thought I would. If he can keep up himself, that's a lot more weight and intimidation on our squad.

[activeStick]

My initial thoughts after the trade announcement were that I couldn't remember the last time Treliving seemingly lost a deal so badly in my own immediate reaction.

It's a fair point brought up by some that Lucic in the bottom 6 is much better than Neal in the bottom 6. I personally would not read into any of the comments from the players given to the media regarding the acquisition of Lucic. Some poster noted that Johnny called Lucic, which is surprising to me given I don't believe they have a relationship, which makes this piece interesting, if true.

As far as the NMC goes, some are finding it hard to believe that Lucic would NOT waive to go to Seattle and bringing up the valid point that Lucic after all, did waive his NMC to come to Calgary. I think almost every player would waive to leave the Oilers given their lack of success over the last many, many seasons. If we see the Flames remain in the top of the league (I do, for the next 4-5 years) and win a cup as well in the next two seasons, that's reason enough for Lucic to want to stay here over going to Seattle just to be 15 or so minutes faster in a flight to Vancouver. Most expansion teams are not like Vegas and assuming Seattle will be competing for the top 3 seeds in the Pacific division would be a poor assumption.

I'm excited for the season to start to see how each player turns out.

[Displaced Flames fan]

Finally got to read this. Your last section sums it up perfectly. Not a win, the mistake was the Neal signing. But this is better than keeping Neal, I believe.

Nice analysis.

[mrdonkey]

There truly hasn’t been this much rationalizing since Sutter’s mid-season panic moves circa 2009. In this case, it might be best for everyone to agree that there’s no putting lipstick on this pig with fancy underlying numbers and talks about how his toughness will make the team better. Lucic sucks and may see regular time as a healthy scratch, and the lower we set our expectations the easier it will be when it plays out on the ice.

We’ll never know how much the locker room aspect and the money owed affected this decision, and likely never will. At least I take comfort in seeing that Treliving himself is not thrilled. He knows Lucic is not the answer to anything. So we don’t have to worry about gaudy declarations akin to the “most 20 goal scorers in the league” type of nonsense that Sutter tried to spin.

If nothing else, I can remain confident that our GM hasn’t suddenly lost his marbles. He probably just needed to get Neal the hell out of that room and was told by Edwards he wasn’t getting a buyout to do it. The real test still remains, and if the team steps back you can be pretty sure Treliving’s leash will be short. The Flames are once again the laughing stock of the league.

[Calgary4LIfe]

I didn't vote on the Neal FA signing. I actually didn't know what to make of it. Sure, he has consistently been a good scorer, but he was older now and I didn't remember him as a fast player. I was very apprehensive about the term. I thought that perhaps the Flames would get 2 decent years out of him - maybe 3 - but I really didn't know how good or how poorly he would fit. I was actually more optimistic about the Brouwer signing TBH back then.


If I compare Neal to Brouwer, I would take Brouwer back in a heartbeat. Why? Well, at least he played hard. He even stuck up for a couple of teammates during his time here. Although he was slow, at least he tried playing defence. Brouwer was also a very poor fit, but at least you could see 'something' that he was doing or at least trying to do.


Neal had a handful of games where he looked like he helped this team win, even if it wasn't on the scoreboard. Even when he did get on the scoreboard, those goals usually seemed 'lucky' to me. Ok, in hockey, you make your own luck, and you build off of it. Didn't happen.


I echo the sentiments of Flame Draft Watcher and Enoch above - every single time I got to Neal while thinking up line combos, I couldn't fit him in. I had him as the 13th forward, and maybe only because I didn't want another young player sitting and not developing.


Dube and Mangiapane are immediate upgrades over Neal. Even if they do nothing at all to put themselves on the scoreboard, at least they can forecheck and backcheck and add to the overall team-speed.



As for Lucic, why are so many people insistent that Neal was going to bounce back, but expecting Lucic to bounce back is foolish. Heck, as long as the Oilers don't spoon-feed Neal top line minutes and having McDavid bank pucks off his butt, I wouldn't be surprised AT ALL to see Lucic outscore Neal - AGAIN.


I have always been wary of 'one trick ponies' in the NHL. Look at Neal's stats - almost every single season with the exception of 3(?), Neal has produced more goals than assists. Really? Not even second assists? Matched the eye test for me this season with how terrible his vision and playmaking was. He does NOT make people around him better.



Why wouldn't I be surprised if Lucic out-produces Neal again? Lucic is the opposite - he has more assists than goals every single season. He is smarter with the puck, and can make players around him better (or at least, knows how to make use of the players around him).


So Neal is primarily a goal scorer. How? People claimed that his abnormally low shooting percentage would rebound, and that it was bad luck. I forget who posted it, but in the trade thread there was a poster who showed every single goal Neal scored last season. Anyone see a goalscorer there? If anything, his shooting percentage last season was HIGH, and he was the beneficiary of some good luck.



Maybe that's part of him 'not feeling it'. I don't know. I just didn't see a player capable of scoring regularly in the NHL. Sometimes you see players who just lose it quickly.



Lucic had atrocious linemates last season. This year, I imagine he gets Hathaway's time, but maybe they put him up with Jankowski and Bennett. Either way, that is better quality of linemates. Also, don't forget about the defencemen - Calgary actually have defencemen - from 1-6 - that can move the puck up quickly either by passing it or skating up with it themselves. They also have defencemen that can actually shoot the damn puck as well.



Everything people say about Neal 'bouncing back' can also be said about Lucic, only Lucic never had that 'sniper shot' upon which he relied on to score. He was able to score in different ways, while playing defence, playing physical, etc. No, Lucic is NOT slower than Neal.



I never saw Lucic as easy to play against either. Heck, I was shocked when Edmonton kept throwing him over the boards against Johnny and Monahan one of those games, and was even more shocked when they couldn't take advantage of this supposed mismatch. Lucic is decent defensively. Not only does he work hard at D, he actually knows what to do, instead of skating back slowly and waving a stick as if it was a magic wand.


I posted before this trade went down that I would be happy with it, as Neal has absolutely no business being in Calgary's lineup. Calgary gave him 5.75 million bucks last year to play hockey, and followed that up by being EXTREMELY patient and continually spoon-feeding him opportunity after opportunity.



The kick in the pants for me was his reaction during the playoffs for not playing enough minutes. He didn't realize he was the least effective player on the ice? Total lack of self-awareness. Proceeds to argue with the coach on the ice in front of the other players, during the playoffs in which the team itself is already rattled? Go talk to Peters in his office AFTER practice, and keep it between the two of you.


I am glad he is gone. Like Lucic or not (and I don't), but at least he is reliable defensively, he is really strong along the boards, he will play physical and actually hit guys, he will stick up for guys if needed, and he has a much broader skill-set that will allow for him to be MORE useful than Neal for the length of that contract. No, it will not surprise me to see Lucic out-produce Neal, but it would absolutely shock me if I didn't think that, outside of his cap-hit, that he is helping this team win rather than lose. Neal helped this team lose. Consistently. He didn't play defence hard at all, and he dragged every other line down that he was ever put on.


This is a definite upgrade in every way.

[カナダ人です]

Sorry but I don't buy it. Much of this is predicated on "toughness", but in today's NHL "toughness" has been re-defined. I would argue a guy like Garnet Hathaway is just as "tough" as Lucic. He can hit, fight, and actually contributes. Lucic meanwhile, at 31 years old, has regressed hard and can't contribute anymore. And who is he going to fight?

The Flames should have just bought Neal out and kept Hathaway (He signed @ 1.5M AAV). That way they actually save cap space and are equally as "tough". Let alone the expansion draft...

How many fights did Lucic have last season? TWO (2)! The same number as Hathaway. Lucic is an anchor that cannot keep up in today's NHL and doesn't even have anyone left to fight. (And for the record last season he fought peluso and gabriel, neither of which are likely in the league next season...)

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Originally Posted by mrdonkey

The Flames are once again the laughing stock of the league.

Only in your mind

What a ridiculous statement