EDMONTON — Forget, for a moment, about whether Milan Lucic’s contract — $6 million annually for four more seasons after this one — is the elephant in the Edmonton Oilers room.
What if his game never comes back? What if a five-time 20-goal scorer never again scores even 15?
Does the elephant in the room become the white elephant in the room?
“If you want me to try and explain two goals in 63 games, I don’t know what to tell ya,” he said on Monday, entertaining an interview that he knows can only be about one thing.
His production, which has turned off like a tap.
“How does it just … stop?” we ask him.
“I wish I had an answer for you. I don’t know,” said Lucic, who is at once frustrated, embarrassed, and madder than hell, breaking a couple of sticks at practice Monday. “It feels like, last December, I really had it going (nine goals before Christmas, on pace for 20). Then, once Christmas happened, the calendar changed, it’s like the tap shut off. Nothing is going right for me.
“Even in my worst times, before this time, I never went on a stretch like this…”
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Lucic scored in Game 1 of this season, as if it were a statement that this season would not be the same as last. He has since gone 16 without denting the twine, however, and déjà vu is setting in among Oilers fans and observers.
As his general manager, Peter Chiarelli, said on Sunday, he’s not the same Lucic as the one who went dry last season, then asked for a trade this summer.
“He’s moving a lot better, and making a lot more plays,” Chiarelli said. “He made more plays in this last segment of games than he made all of last year. Defensive wall plays, cycle plays, power play plays … He’s snake-bitten … but a completely different game.”
It’s true what Chiarelli says. For instance, Lucic made a nice pass to start the play on Edmonton’s line goal in a 4-1 loss Sunday. He has been a relatively effective set-up man this season, but as a scorer Lucic has had more than his share of Grade A chances and done nothing with them.
We all know the goal scorer’s cliché, that they’ll start to worry once they stop getting chances. After nearly a calendar year of futility, however, does it really matter anymore how many chances Lucic gets?
“You try to find results. You try to stay positive,” he said. “I made a pretty good play on a goal last game. Sometimes you can build off a goal like that.”
It became an issue in the second half of last season when Lucic’s frustration at his own performance bled into the team’s mindset. He was a walking ball of negativity, something he promised himself would not happen again this season.
So instead the 30-year-old assistant captain looked at his own game — literally and figuratively — in an effort to find the player who has five 50-point seasons on his resume.
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“Shooting harder. Gripping different parts of your stick. Taking it on your backhand. Switching the way you tape your stick. Try different types of things to try and get something to work for ya,” began Lucic, who was taken off the No. 1 power play unit a few games ago. “Changing gloves. Washing your gloves. Changing your laces. Just trying to find something to work off of. As far as drills go, I’m shooting from different spots. Shooting off a different foot. Shooting off of different stances. Just trying to find something to stay positive about.”
Anything else?
“I’ve even gone back and looked at myself scoring goals back in my Boston days (2007-15). Back in my Vancouver Giant days (2004-07). Finding video of yourself scoring goals, feeling good about yourself.
“I can’t let it bring the team down. I’ve got to try and find something heading into (Tuesday’s) game.”
There was likely a time when a younger Lucic, a player who is keenly aware of the numbers surrounding the game, would have looked at an older, failing veteran and thought, “Whoa, how about THAT deal for a guy who’s scored two goals in 10 months?”
Today, Lucic is aware what is quietly being said about him in NHL circles — and not so quietly by hockey fans. At a time when the Calgary Flames are benching newly-signed free agent James Neal, and Carey Price’s numbers are historically low as he plays Year 1 of an eight-year, $84 million deal at age 31, Lucic is among a group of players not aging well.
He also knows that the player he replaced in this lineup won the Hart Trophy last season. His name is Taylor Hall.
“It doesn’t matter if he scores, at all,” a supportive/protective Connor McDavid said of Lucic. “He brings so much to the team, in the room. When he’s playing hard, playing mean like he has been, he opens up so much ice. He’s a guy who has been a leader since he got here.
“If he scores? Great. If not he still brings so much to the table that he doesn’t even need to.”
His coach, Todd McLellan, is also hopeful, booned by Lucic’s increased playmaking abilities this season.
“Eventually, it will go,” said McLellan. “He made a nice play on the goal last night. It’s there. It’ll come.”
With a familiar foe in the building Tuesday night, Lucic finds a sliver of positive history to be spun into hope.
“Look at my personal stats,” he says, managing a smile. “I’ve had success against the Montreal Canadiens.
“If I just stick with it, maybe it’s going to go in.”
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