Im pretty confident that Frolik is on his way out, hes mentioned he wants a trade, so i think Looch would be a great fit on the third line, as we have chucky on the second line. It would be a good second and third line.

4th line. I'm not familiar with Dube and Czarnik but if they arent fast skaters, then that line's gonna be chasing the play all game.

Looch looking for the big hit behind the net as that's the main way he hits now (waiting for players to bounce off him).

Mangiapane?

czarnik isnt slow by any means. but hes a smaller player. looch is probably your 3rd line checking forward at this point in his career. i dont think he would be worth it to be a 4th liner. you dont trade james neal (albeit a bad season last year) for a 5.25m 4th liner.

I doubt he'd be able to handle 3rd line is the problem. Could barely hang on the 4th line as it is.

I'm quite happy with James Neal compared to Lucic.
Unfortunate, but he was definitely a boat anchor for the bot6 wherever he played.

Best of luck to him in Cowtown, but not against my Oilers haha.

4th line the man can’t skate or move the puck he basically can only hit if he catches up with the puck

I mean lucic never drove the offense, he is your typical powerforward. isnt a great shot. but is a big body to screen the goalie. can clear out the crease, can lay big hits. He never was a fast skater, he never had a great shot. He was severely overpaid by chiarelli in edmonton, but look who his linemates were most of last year. sam gagner? who played with him on rw? as i said he isnt your offensive threat hes your checking forward. he will not drive the offense, nor should the offense go through him, hes there to collect rebounds and either put it home or kick it out. thats all hes really ever been good for.

I think our lines will be:
Johnny - Monahan - Lindholm
Tkachuk - Backlund - Jankowski*
Lucic - Dube - Bennett
Mangiapane - Ryan - Czarnik

I would have no problem seeing how these work out, Dube was taken advantage of as a rookie twice last year in blind side hits, does it still happen this year, maybe, but if it does you don’t have Hamonic breaking his jaw in a fight standing up to Gudbranson.
I saw you mention that you are happier with Neal in Edmonton and you’d be crazy not to be, in Calgary though Neal wouldn’t be pushing for top 6 minutes just due to his standing with Peters and how last year went. I think he will bounce back but it certainly wasn’t going to happen in Calgary. Lucic fits a role the Flames were desperately missing since Engelland left for Vegas, optimistically for me, Lucic plays with Bennett and allows him to open up offensively a little more. We have seen flashes from Bennett but he’s been trying to find a balance between being a crash and bang guy while still trying to put up big points I don’t think he will ever live up to 4th overall but I’m hoping Lucic filling a role helps a few guys out in our bottom six. Essentially we got a slower, tougher, more experienced version of Garnet Hathaway.

Unfortunately he also moved away from those. He shy'd away from the dirty areas in favor of tip ins (which he isnt really good at).
Primary reason he was moved off the 1st PP.

He wasnt overpaid. It was the going rate at that time for primo FA's, which at the time he was.
Problem was the term than anything.

6m aav was always too much for lucic. he should have gotten a maximum... MAXIMUM amount of 4.5 no more. That FA class was garbage. Backes was overpaid in term, Loui was overpaid in every area. Lucic was overpaid in term, guarantees, and money.

When you have multiple teams interested in a player, (most notably LA) also willing to pay the price you paid, it wasnt an overpay. That's the "going rate".
They got into a bidding war and the Oilers won, but lost after year 1 (hindsight being 20/20).
Term shouldve been capped at 4 years.

Noone batted an eye when Lucic went Prime Lucic with 50pts 202Hits in year 1.
Absolutely nobody said anything until his production fell off a cliff.

Overpay wouldve been if noone wanted a player and you paid him a ton of money for no good reason.
See Russel and his 4year 16M contract... Sekera was the same way too. Brandon Manning is a good example as well.

Not that hard to understand.

I dont think LA wanted him at 6m. just because thats what the "going rate" is at the time doesnt mean he wasnt overpaid. whatever team landed him at 6m was overpaid. again, backes was overpaid and so was ericsson. that was your high ticket free agent class. they all got overpaid. primo lucic isnt worth 6m. he had 25 points on the pp in his first year in edmonton thats a fluke compared to the rest of his career stats. Also yeah im familiar with how peter chiarelli gave out contracts. overpay and attached ntc and nmc to all of them for no reason.

They offered him the same 7yr 42m contract. It was a "big deal" that he chose EDM over LA and that the time of the Oilers having to overpay players to come is over.
That was the narrative.

So yeah, not an overpay but ended up being a problem once production slowed.