Even with all the McDavid hype, Milan Lucic is still far outperforming his ADP.

Milan Lucic has been well known throughout the league ever since he entered the NHL with the Boston Bruins in 2007. However, this year there seemed to be a bit more hype and optimism surrounding the power-forward, mostly due to the fact that Lucic will be skating next to the best hockey player on the planet. During free agency, the Oilers lured Lucic to Edmonton and signed him to a massive seven-year, $42 million contract. Promised to be given a chance to play next to Connor McDavid, Lucic has the opportunity to have a career year with the Oilers. However, even if Lucic doesn’t have the monster season some people are hoping for, Lucic’s strong peripherals guarantees that you’ll get solid value out of him.

Since entering the NHL, Lucic has always put up good penalty minute numbers and recorded plenty of hits. After the first few seasons of his career, Lucic has consistently averaged 200+ hits per season and is one of the league’s best power-forwards. However, unlike most players with those kinds of penalty minutes and hit totals, Lucic has quite the scoring touch. Throughout his career, Lucic has two 60-point seasons (and one 59-point season) and four seasons with 20 goals or more.

This kind of production has made Lucic one of the best options for fantasy leagues with hits and penalty minutes as categories, considering most of the other players that produce those kinds of hit totals are fourth-line grinders. However, over the past season or two, there seems to be a bit of trepidation in drafting Lucic, mostly due to his increasing age and decreasing point totals. While 28 isn’t exactly old, Lucic isn’t a spring chicken anymore and power-forwards don’t typically age very well. One only has to look at examples like Mike Richards, Dustin Brown, or Brenden Morrow to see how fast players who play a gritty style can deteriorate. Combine that with his decreasing point totals (two years ago he only scored 44 points) and Lucic’s stock has dropped a bit from where it was years ago.

However, even though Lucic isn’t the hot production commodity he once was, he can still provide extraordinary value. Using the trusted Fantasy Hockey Geek Tool, we can take a look at what Lucic’s value would be in an average 12-team H2H Yahoo league measuring G, A, PPP, SOG, Hits, W, SV%, GAA, and SO.

In a standard Yahoo fantasy hockey league, Lucic provides the 27^th most value, ahead of names like John Klingberg, Max Pacioretty, and Taylor Hall. Not to mention he’s only two spots behind McDavid himself! And yet, despite providing so much value, Lucic is only being drafted on average around 90^th overall. Using Dobber’s projections as a reference, Lucic so far has been surpassing Dobber’s projections. Currently sitting at four points in five games, if we prorate Lucic’s current stats over 82 games through the What If tool, we can check out Lucic’s potential value.

On track to have his highest hit total ever and break the thirty-goal mark for the second time in his career, Lucic will have the 21^st most value in an average Yahoo league if he keeps this pace. Just behind Vladimir Tarasenko and Shea Weber but in front of Johnny Gaudreau, Lucic continues to dominate and severely outperform his draft position. But what if Lucic doesn’t have the career year everyone is hoping for? What if his point totals decline and end up closer to his last season in Boston?

Even if Lucic only scores 20 goals and 28 assists, he’ll still provide the 40^th most value in the league. Tied with Nicklas Backstrom and one point behind Anze Kopitar, Lucic’s probably worst-case scenario point totals still leaves him a top-40 player in standard leagues. With a high floor and an even higher ceiling, Lucic looks like a must-draft in most fantasy leagues, especially considering his low average draft position.

To identify more players with great value in your specific league settings, check out Fantasy Hockey Geek to generate custom rankings tailored for you. Even better, use the Draft Guru tool (included with the Draft Kit) to get advice on the best players available after each and every pick to absolutely dominate your draft.  Manage your way to the top by using our other tools as part of the Season Toolkit.  Head to the Dobber Sports Shop and pick it up today!