Quote:
Originally Posted by mrdonkey
His body language is very nervous. He knew this wouldn't be a popular move and probably would've preferred to not talk about it.
Not really saying much about the players themselves either. Leads me to believe this was more about getting Neal off the team than about Lucic, but he obviously can't say that.
|
You are right. He looked pretty nervous. I thought Tre would be GM for years and years, but now I'm not sure.
Obviously Tre cares about the optics of Neal resurrecting, or he wouldn't have asked for the attempted face saving conditional 3rd. Why not instead factor in underperformance by Lucic by not overpaying?! He has value...no doubt, but lets not overpay for it like the oilers did.
Lucic was an immovable joke. Edmonton was stuck with a contract that was toxic. There were rumours that McDavid might ask to leave town because they couldn't get a supporting cast together. Lucic scored in the opening game this past season.....and then went 41 games without a goal. Look back a little further to the latter part of the 17/18 season: he got one goal in a 46 game span. So by my count, 2 goals in 87 games. There is more to this story that we all know, but that is telling enough.
We have enough scoring, but the flames maybe need grit. Tre is desperate for it. He thought he had Kadri, but that slipped through his fingers. Colorado smoked us regardless of grit. And now they have Kadri, but whatevs.
Maybe Lucic has that gritty/tough something or other to offer. But Edmonton was desperate....effing DES-PER-ATE to get rid of his contract. We all smelled it in their syphilitic water. How does Tre not get a better deal?
The only thing that makes sense? Neal was also toxic.
I thought I was watching a guy just have a bad year. He had many good ones before it. He said the right things about getting into shape this offseason with Gary Roberts.
Tre is known for due diligence, but everyone can see he made a mistake with signing Neal. Maybe he shrugged off Neal's reputation for a bitchy attitude and he never foresaw that it would matter. And then the black swan event happens and the guy gets sat in the most important game of the year. That was more irreparable perhaps than many of us thought.
But from the outside looking in, so what. So he overpayed for Neal. Every GM makes mistakes. Tre got this team some great players in trades and managed some tricky contract deals.
But now he just doubled down on that mistake by not putting Holland’s feet to the fire.
And this NMC…..did we just trade Neal + either Bennett or Mangiapane for Lucic and the potential 3rd?
And then they mobilize Peter Hanlon to round up the leadership and his nibs to give quotes to the press so they would have some material ready to face the disbelief from their fanbase?! Like we can’t see through that BS.
Gilmour in 1992, Phaneuf in 2010 and now Neal in 2019. The eras between brain numbing trades is measured in a geometric sequence….so now only 4.5 years until we flip Valimaki for Bobrovsky.