NHL teams should be wary of acquiring Pierre Luc-Dubois

Pierre-Luc Dubois.

No NHL team should be fooled by Pierre-Luc Dubois again.

This is hockey, but a baseball term sums up the situation best: Three strikes and you’re out.

Three teams have fallen for the center’s combination of size (6-foot-4, 225 pounds) and all-around skill. All three have wound up regretting it.

First, it was the Columbus Blue Jackets, who took Dubois with the third overall pick in the 2016 NHL Draft.

He had a good rookie campaign in 2017-18 and showed real potential the following season with 27 goals, 61 points and a plus-16 mark in 82 games.

But he was a shell of that player for the next season-and-a-half. And there was a lot of speculation that he did not see eye-to-eye with then-Blue Jackets’ coach John Tortorella,

Coincidentally, the player who was taken with the pick before Dubois in 2016, Patrick Laine, was also unhappy and underachieving with the team that had drafted him, the Winnipeg Jets.

So, during the Covid-19 pandemic-affected season of 2020-21, Columbus and Winnipeg traded the talented but troubled duo for one another on Jan. 23, 2021, in a deal that also netted the Blue Jackets another player.

Dubois only had nine goals and 21 points in 46 games that season, but then put together two solid seasons — 28 and 27 goals and 60 and 63 points, respectively. But, again, he was not happy, leading to him being shopped on the trade market for a contract year.

So, last June, the Jets traded Dubois to the Los Angeles Kings in a four-player deal that also involved a draft choice. He promptly signed an eight-year, $68 million contract with the Kings.

But after a regular season total of 16-24-40 for Dubois and a third consecutive elimination in the first round of the playoffs at the hands of the Edmonton Oilers, potentially buying out Dubois is a natural consideration.

If the Kings do cut him loose, will other teams take DuBois’ past into consideration and learn from the Blue Jackets, Jets and Kings?

Or will another franchise become smitten with his potential?

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