Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Bozek
My recollection of the Commodore interview was his suggestion that Neal was emotionally and physically exhausted from having played so much more hockey through to the SCF in consecutive years. I don't think he was saying that Neal was lazy about conditioning and staying in shape, and he hoped that the longer break this summer might give him a better opportunity to push the reset button.
I'm not so optimistic - I was afraid he'd turn into our next Brouwer when we signed him, and I think Father Time has caught up with him. Regardless of his good conditioning, I fear we won't see the Neal of 2-3 years ago. I hope I'm wrong.
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I don't think we'll see the Neal at his best or even close to it. But I think there's a decent chance of him getting much better than he was. For all the number of times he didn't play well, there were also a number of times he was OK and just unlucky, or his linemates couldn't get him the puck in a good position. I also think he wasn't used properly on the PP. He's not net front, he's a shooter form the wing, either offhand or strong side.