What Are the Expectations For Lucas Raymond After Great First Season?

Lucas Raymond: What Can We Expect In Year Two?

All of the things I listed above were great. However, let’s not lose sight to the fact that he did fall off after one of the best starts we’ve seen from a player in their first-season. However, the progress he makes in the upcoming seasons is going to be something to behold.

Strengths

Raymond, who is currently considered a front-runner for the Calder Trophy, is going to be a superstar for years to come. No debate, no questions asked, Lucas Raymond is a superstar in the making. The only reason he doesn’t become a top player in the league is if he has a sustains a setback due to injury. Which god forbid that happens.

Anyways, getting back on track. The Red Wings winger is finishing up the final stretch of his first regular season. Crazily, he has not missed a single game to this point. The Red Wings have played in 78 games after yesterday’s game against the Panthers, and he has played in 78 games. All the while performing incredibly well.

In those 78 games that Raymond has 23 goals and 33 assists for a total of 56 points. Now, that goes to show how good he is as a player. Well, that goes to show how good he one day will be. He put up those numbers in his first season and still has multiple games left to put up even more. And looking beyond this season, he has a lot to work with as far as his ability to grow.

His skating is quite impressive, but how he uses his speed is what makes him such a terrific player. He moves into the backdoor, loses the defenseman, and also uses it to draw double coverage and open up passes. That’s the effect that he has on the ice. But there’s more to it than that.

He has shown repeditely that he can really shoot the puck. He has a phenomonal wrist shot, can hit the one-timer well, and he has good accuracy. The only thing I’d like to see him do more is shoot the puck. Having only having 176 shots on goal, that is one of the lower number for first-line players in the NHL.

Nonetheless, he is one of the best upcoming players, and I expect him to be one of the most impactful players on the Red Wings team. Furthermore, I expect him to be a top 50 player in the league after next season. I have that much faith in him.

Weaknesses

There are not many weaknesses to Raymond’s game. I mean, there are defiently a couple if we want to be nit picky. But as far as how he will progress in the league due to these weaknesses, there aren’t many at all. But let’s get into it.

First, the defense part to his game is lacking. When you look at his defensive statistics, there isn’t much positive to say. I mean, looking at the statistic part of his game, he’s a -29. Which in case your curious, is not very good.

Which, if I’m being honest, I don’t really care about the -29. It’s more the fact that I’m knit picking and I feel like a player of his caliber could be a top 20 player in the league if he could improve his defensive capabilites. It’s just something I feel that is holding him back.

Secondly, as I said above, I feel that for a first-line winger, he should be shooting the puck more than he did this past season. You look at some of the players around the league like Vladimir Tarasenko, Jason Robertson, Kirill Kaprizov, some of the top tier scorers on the first-line- they all shoot the puck like crazy. Raymond, if he want’s to be in a tier with those guys, need’s to put more shots on goal.

Those two of course are knit picking his game. Nonetheless, those are things that he could improve on.