The Minnesota Wild offseason keeps trucking along and that means it’s time for another report card. We’re still looking at the fourth line and while Brandon Duhaime, Connor Dewar, and Vinni Lettieri already received their grades, Jake Lucchini was also a member of that line off and on throughout the season.
He was another newcomer to the lineup, but he worked hard to make an impression. The Wild struggled through a lot of injuries to their roster, and Lucchini stepped up when needed. Again, since there was no postseason for the Wild, we’ll have to look at his regular-season performance. We’ll first take a look at a rough part of his game and move on from there.
Lucchini Needs to Take Shots
Lucchini played almost half the season for the Wild and scored two goals and three assists for five points. Those five points aren’t hugely impressive numbers, but he still found a way to contribute. However, he needs to improve on taking more shots as he continues his career.
If Lucchini wants to score more goals, he must be confident and shoot as often as possible. In his 40 games during the season, he had 22 shots. He should average nearly a shot per game if he wants to produce more. While he needs to average more shots, he must also work on his blocked shots.
He blocked just 14 shots this past season, and although he’s not expected to have a lot of blocks as a forward, he needs to improve that. Typically, the fourth line is known more as a checking and defensive line with offense as a bonus; Lucchini needs to improve his defensive side going forward.
Lucchini’s Careful with Puck
Lucchini has a few areas in which he can improve his game as he continues on his NHL journey, but something he has under control is his turnovers. He had only three turnovers in his 40 games played, which is very impressive. He was barely above Jared Spurgeon and that’s because Spurgeon only played 16 games.
He kept his turnovers and penalty minutes down. This past season, he took just 23 minutes in penalties, which was on the roster’s lower end. When breaking it down even further, that’s four minors, one major, and one misconduct. The four minors are a great number to have; he’ll have to work on the major and misconduct, however.
One major misconduct isn’t horrible, but going forward, it’ll help his future team not to be in the penalty box for five minutes and then out another 10 due to misconduct. Looking back over the game logs, in the two games he received those penalties, he was just one of many players taking penalties. Both games were high-tension games, and he responded to everything going on around him. He’ll have to keep his cool in the future, but his low penalty numbers are already a sign of that.
Lucchini’s Overall Grade
Lucchini didn’t have as much of an offensive impact as most would’ve liked, and he could work a little on his defensive game. However, he has some things going for him. His turnovers are low, which is always good, and his penalty minutes are also low despite having both a major and misconduct. Typically players on the fourth line that have those types of penalties, are way higher in penalty minutes.
Looking at both the bad and good he earned a C-, it wasn’t higher because he has quite a few things to fix, but it also wasn’t lower because he did contribute. He will have to improve in a different jersey this coming season as he jumped into free agency and signed with the Nashville Predators on day one.
Related: Minnesota Wild Report Cards 2023-24: Connor Dewar
Hopefully he’ll be able to get more playing time with the Predators and improve his grade. A change of scenery is sometimes all a player and team need to be successful on both sides. It’ll be interesting to see how his career unfolds this coming season.
