Milan Lucic could be healthy scratch why is wingers production dow

More NHL: | | | | | When you look at the this season, they have never seemed to be the team that they are capable of being. They are still second in the Eastern Conference, but it has felt like they can be better than they've shown.That sentiment is personified in the form of bruising winger . He has not been anywhere close to as good as people expect from him -- and as he apparently expects from himself. In 41 games this season, he has only six goals and 24 total points. Those six goals are particularly galling.It's to the point that Lucic was bumped down the line combinations for Wednesday's game against Buffalo then, in practice on Thursday, was actually skating on the fifth line or the scratch line. It would seem to indicate a scratch is in Lucic's future on Friday night, when the Bruins host the conference leading Penguins. Somewhat surprisingly, he's OK with that."I wouldn't blame anyone but myself. If that's what needs to be done in order to get myself going, I'm for what's best for the team and not best for myself," Lucic told reporters on Thursday. Ultimately, it all comes down to myself, so theres no one to blame but myself.I can't say I'm entirely sure that's what needs to happen. Typically, scratching an underperforming player is used as a tactic to make said player aware of his struggles, to try to give a kick in the pants to pick it up. Lucic is already aware that he needs to be better."It's been a frustrating year," Lucic said. "I want to be better, got to be better and try to do my best to work through this." The big question is how? What can Lucic do to get back to the type of numbers that he's used to? To figure that out, you have to figure what's wrong this season.The answer to that is probably as simple as it's just not Lucic's year. When you look at his numbers, the a sists are on pace with where he has been the past few seasons. Projected over an 82-game season, Lucic is on pace for 36 helpers, which would be one better than last season, when he Bojan Bogdanovic Jersey set a career high in that category. The problem is the goals.His 12-goal pace is well below the marks that he set in the previous two campaigns. He had 30 goals two years ago, when the Bruins won the Cup, and 26 goals last season. That's the big problem -- when you see that big of a drop in goals, it's going to be noticed. First off, Lucic isn't shooting as much as in recent seasons. This season, he is averaging 1.63 shots per game. It was at 1.84 per game last season and 2.19 in 2010-11. He is averaging half a shot le s per game than that 30-goal season. That's 41 shots over a full 82-game season. For a guy who converts on 14.9 percent of career shots on goal, we're talking about a difference of six goals. If he were shooting more in line with two seasons ago and his career average, we'd be talking about a guy with nine or 10 goals just by virtue of shooting more.That's still not enough, though. The problem also lies in the fact that Lucic has a shooting percentage this season well below not only his career average but where he was in the past two seasons.Two years ago, Lucic scored on 17.2 percent of shots on goal. Last season, he scored on 17.3 percent. This season? A paltry 9.0 percent. It's asking a lot for a guy to shoot 17 percent, so that number coming down isn't really a surprise, but Lucic has maintained a high shooting percentage throughout his career. As noted, he is a career 14.9-percent shooter, which is awfully good. It gets tough to discount a high shooting percentage as luck when it's done over 400 games. That's a pretty good sample size.What's tough to quantify is why that's the case, why that number is down. It could be as simple of an explanation as bad luck, or it could be something deeper. There was concern after the lockout that Lucic wasn't in game shape. But now, a few months later, you'd think that wasn't an i sue anymore. You'd think.Or perhaps it's a confidence i sue because Lucic said that he's not where he should be in that regard. "It's not where it was two years ago or last year," Lucic said. "It's almost back to where it was at year three, when things are just not going the way you want them to go."Whatever the i sue is, Lucic might get a night off to think about it and how to fix it. The Bruins hope it gets straightened out before the playoffs and especially before next season, when a three-year, $18 million contract kicks in. T. J. Warren Jersey