Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
I think Neal plays in the top six as an injury replacement because he is probably the Flames best option for a scoring line without disrupting the line balance too much. But I am confused by this assertion in your post. You yourself pointed out in this same post that the Flames secondary scoring is sctually above average:
I get that everyone wants more scoring, but this is just simply not an issue right now. The Flames have a spectacular top line, and also manage to get good production from their depth players comparatively speaking. This looks like a recipe for success to me.
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I thought our current available forwards 4-6 were lower than they were, but they are actually in a 3 way tie for 14th, which is actually the very definition of average, not below average.
My main point was that I think you lose more production from Johnny, Monahan and Lindholm when you split them up than you gain by moving Lindholm off the top line and place Neal on there. If they want to put Neal with Tkachuk I think that is fine, but I would not play him with Gaudreau and Monahan.
The likelihood that Neal has a shooting percentage at or above his historical average in any season under this contract is low, based on historical patterns for players over the age of 31 however, so I think we should be hoping for an 7-8 shooting percentage as opposed to 12-13, which would be more in line with what can be expected of him.
According to the stats posted by SuperMatt, Neal has had a 18.3% drop in high danger scoring chances. If you assume he has a corresponding drop in his shooting percentage because you expect him to score most of his goals from high danger scoring chances, his shooting percentage drops from 11.8% to an expected 9.6%. If you shave of another point or two because older players usually experience a drop in shooting percentage you get to 7-8 percent expect shooting percentage (roughly).
His historical percentage does not seem overly relevant to me, other than to say that a younger James Neal would score more goals, which seems obvious. With the exception of last year when he was in a contract year, his historical shooting percentage has been slowly dropping over the previous 4 years (albeit slightly). This would be in line with historical data that offensively players marginally drop between 26-30. That same historical data says that players significantly drop from 31-35.
All that being said, I think the expectation for Neal should have been 15 goals a season when he was signed. He is below that pace so far this year and hopefully will bounce back but 20+ goals was always unrealistic.