Quote:
Originally Posted by Toonage
I thought the Hossa/Neal comparison was that Hossa went to 2 cup finals and lost before winning his 3rd attempt and Neal has gone and lost in 2 finals as well meaning he wins his 3rd try here
|
That's a superficial comparision at best though. It would be a cute eyeroll worthy talking piece like "Sam Bennett's moustache makes him our Lanny McDonald" I suppose. But even if it came true AND Neal bounces back to last year's level, it wouldn't be comparable to Hossa whose acquisition and team friendly deal arguably opened and defined Chicago's cup window.
If Neal won the cup it would be as an overpaid passenger. When Hossa won the cup (3x) he was an under-paid (in terms of salary AAV) star. You'd be hard-pressed to find a year where Hossa wasn't one of the three best forwards on that stacked team. You could argue Neal has thus far been one of the three worst forwards on our team with the upside being that he becomes the 6th or 7th best forward.
If we ground ourselves in reality, we hope
Neal is our 2014 Brown
Neal is our 2015 Bickell
Neal is our 2017 Kunitz
And as ugly as that sounds, the important thing is those teams still won.