Quote:
Originally Posted by ComixZone
The depth the team has now has afforded Neal the time to struggle.
If we didn’t have Lindholm, and Neal had been bolted to the top line I bet he’d be having more success by now.
But hey, we’re a good team. Neal is part of it. Right now, he’s an overpaid 3rd line player with a long history of success. I’m still confident he’ll find his game.
Right now he has a CF% of 56%, a PDO of 96.4, a Shooting % of 4.49% when his career average is 11.8%.
He is not hurting the team, he’s just not scoring.
The optics definitely scream overpaid 3rd liner, but imagine if we get a good QB at the trade deadline for PP2 and PP2 starts generating?
I think the negativity being directed towards Neal is flat out overblown.
We’re the best damn team in the Western Conference and part of why we have so much success is that we can roll line after line of players that drive the game towards the oppositions need and grind them down during the course of a 60 minute game.
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But he is often hurting the team defensively. Often not making good plays with the puck, turning it over and making his teammates work to get the puck back and not able to play adequate defense.
If you're not helping, you're hurting. Not always the case by any means mind you, but unfortunately that is the case for Neal.