Armchair Hockey Scout

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2022-23 edition Ask a direct question about this edition of the book — who, how many, how common, which group more — and it is answered with a table computed on this page from the edition’s index: the season line, height and age, the on-ice percentiles, the grades and the traits read out of every report. Ask for a view on named players — what a comparison comes down to, what makes a man — and you get the book’s reading of their own pages, and only those. The model turns your question into a query and phrases the result, or reads the pages it is handed; it never originates a figure, and an answer carrying a figure that is on neither the table nor the pages is withheld. It does not forecast, and it says so when a question is outside what the book holds.

Tables are computed on this page from the 2022-23 edition’s index; readings rest on the players’ own pages; the model never counts. Twenty questions an hour.
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17

Milan Lucic

Calgary Flames Left Wing

Twelve point five hits per 60 at the 94th percentile, 1,256 career penalty minutes, and 21 points in 82 games.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2007-08BOS7781927-289104889.112:07
2008-09BOS72172542+171362039717.514:57
2009-10BOS5091120-7440027212.514:21
2010-11BOS79303262+2812150717317.316:35
2011-12BOS81263561+713570114917.417:02
2012-13BOS4672027+875000798.916:55
2013-14BOS80243559+309130515315.717:23
2014-15BOS81182644+138120414112.816:21
2015-16LAK81203555+267920512416.117:14
2016-17EDM82232750-350120317513.117:10
2017-18EDM82102434-12803011476.815:58
2018-19EDM7961420-991200748.113:14
2019-20CGY6881220-654501839.613:20
2020-21CGY56101323-8462007413.513:38
2021-22CGY82101121-9842009510.512:15
2022-23 so far—————————————
Career—1096226339565+73125648036172413.115:17

This Season So Far

The 2022-23 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

10 goals and 11 assists in 82 games — 21 points at 12:15 a night, minus-9, with 84 penalty minutes.

50.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 934 minutes, the 56th percentile among forwards. His ice went 26-35 against an expectation of 34.83-34.33.

On a club that took 55.2 per cent of the chances, his line took 50.4. That is what a fourth line costs a very good team.

The Finesse Game

5.67 shots per 60 is the 21st percentile among forwards and 1.18 even-strength points per 60 is the 14th. There is very little offence here and there has not been for five years.

2.45 giveaways per 60 is the 91st percentile and counts against him, on 12 minutes a night. He holds the puck along the wall and it comes off him.

The Physical Game

6-3 and 236. 12.48 hits per 60 is the 94th percentile among forwards, and 1,256 penalty minutes across 1,096 career games.

1.31 penalties taken per 60 is the 87th percentile and his drawn-minus-taken of minus-0.54 is the 7th. At twelve minutes a night on a club with the 2nd-best penalty kill in the league that is affordable, and it is still a cost.

22.0 mph is the 25th percentile and 9.19 miles per 60 is the 16th. He is 34 and he skates like it.

The Intangibles

Fiftieth overall in 2006 by Boston, a Stanley Cup at twenty-three, and 1,096 games with 565 points and 1,256 penalty minutes.

With Trevor Lewis on the ice Calgary took 40.4 per cent of the chances; Lucic without him was at 56.6 and Lewis without Lucic at 50.2, across 695 attempts together. That fourth line was a hole in a 111-point team, and the with-and-without-you data says the hole was the pairing rather than either man on his own.

What kind of player

The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.

  • measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
  • a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
  • he lacks itraised, and he does not have it

Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.

  • durable· was available

    82 of 82 games

    Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it

  • punishinga strength· finishes checks; hurts people legally

    “12.48 hits per 60 is the 94th percentile among forwards”

  • fouls-when-beatenhe lacks it· the stick foul that follows losing a step

    “1.31 penalties taken per 60 is the 87th percentile and his drawn-minus-taken of minus-0.54 is the 7th.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 934 minutes

Expected goals
50.4%
59th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
53.7%
82nd pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 26 for, 35 against. Expected: 34.8 and 34.3.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
38th
Numbers
59th

The numbers rank him 21 points above where the report does. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.

Both bars are percentiles among the 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 58 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Tracked

NHL Edge, 2021-22 · 82 games

Top speed
22.0 mph
45th pct

fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.0

Bursts over 20 mph
0.98 a game

how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes

Distance
1.88 miles a game

skated, all strengths

Hardest shot
92.5 mph
79th pct

one shot; the league's average best is 84.1

A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.

Usual linemates

2021-22 · 934 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2021-22

The club
CGY took 55.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.4% — 4.8 below the club he did it on.
The role
Third line, 934 minutes at five-on-five — 54th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Trevor Lewis40.4%56.6%50.2%
Sean Monahan51.0%50.0%52.5%
Christopher Tanev49.2%50.9%56.0%

40.4% together, 56.6% for him apart and 50.2% for Lewis apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

137 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 10 of them goals. His median goal came from 24 feet. 33% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 18% from beyond forty.