I think a successful season for Neal includes him completely replacing Frolik's offense while playing on the second line. 15-18 goals, 35-45 points, decent PP2 production. I think that's realistic, considering that he was on a 13-goal, 39-point pace after New Years'.
It'd help if he didn't get any worse defensively, either. For example, Tkachuk allowed 50.0 CA/60 last year, while Neal was closer to 55.6 CA/60 (Corsi attempts against/60 -- higher numbers indicate more shots allowed). Neal's numbers weren't otherworldly bad by any means -- Bennett was at 63.9, indicating that Neal was far from the problem on his line. Monahan was only slightly better than Neal, at 53.4 CA/60. So as long as Neal can avoid being an outright poor defensive player (if he plays with Tkachuk), I think we could see a successful season.
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