Lucius showed skill and resilience during a difficult 2020-21 season.

The forward learned during the summer of 2020 that lingering pain in his left knee was from a bone lesion sustained when a puck caused a bruise on a growth plate a few years earlier.

Lucius had arthroscopic surgery Aug. 21, 2020 to remove the lesion. The procedure involved scraping away dead bone from his leg and taking bone marrow from his back and injecting into the affected area to stimulate bone growth.

The grueling recovery kept Lucius in a wheelchair for six weeks and he didn't begin skating until December 2020. He was cleared to return to the USA Hockey National Team Development Program Under-18 team in February 2021, and in his first game back scored two goals. He went on to score 13 goals in 13 games and said his skating was better than it had been in years because the lesion had been removed.

An illness prevented Lucius from playing for the United States at the 2021 IIHF Under-18 World Championship, but that didn't prevent the Winnipeg Jets from selecting him with the No. 18 pick in the 2021 NHL Draft.