Bringing in him and Lindholm this off season has solidified Calgary's right wing position and solved a lot of the problems we had last season scoring (Elias obviously being the main reason). It didn't happen in a conventional way as I'm sure most thought Neal would be near the 20/20 mark, and Elias would trend to 20/35 for year, but I think if you said at the beginning of the year that our two new RW's would be on pace for ~110 combined points on the season and the team would be second in league scoring at the all star break most people would take it.
Neal's play of late has been better and I'm seeing a way better team attitude and desire to break out of the slump than I ever did with Brouwer. I'm hoping that Neal earns some of his contract this year with a strong stretch drive to close the year and a half dozen big goals in the playoffs. However, the Neal case does serve as yet another warning about the high risk involved in UFA contracts.
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