Quote:
Originally Posted by ComixZone
Nothing in Neal's history shows he's anything like Brouwer. The only similarities is that they were both UFA signings.
|
Both UFA signings who immediately faltered based on their expectations.
Brouwer had seven straight seasons of 17+ goals. Over those seven seasons he was pro-rated to score 22 goals. Everyone expected him to be a 20-20-40 guy for the Flames based on his past success his previous seasons and he sucked phenomenally. He followed up a bad season with an even worse season before being bought out.
The only reason to expect Neal to produce next year is because of his past seasons prior to joining the Flames- just like Brouwer. There was nothing in Neal's play last year to expect him to be anything but a healthy scratch except his pay cheque...and even that didn't save him during the most important game of the season. The only reason to expect Neal to bounce back is because of his seasons prior to joining the Flames, and the couple goals more he would have scored with a 'career average' shot percentage wouldn't have saved his terrible season.