Quote:
Originally Posted by Bingo
Riiiiight ....
But with the deal not happening they have James Neal for four years.
Which of your shopping list do you think he possesses?
speed
skill
vision
playmaking
strength
strategic defending
Is that .5 for 6?
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Last year Neal was none of those things consistently.
There's a 33% chance he'd be the same player next year. 33% he'd be better. 33% he'd be worse. There's no data to accurately predict how he'd do next year. So why not wait and see which of the three it is.
All we know is he's disappointed with his performance and it's all talk right now of him training and working harder to not have a repeat of last year. The relationship with Peters is fractured and the rest of the roster possibly doesn't think too highly of Neal. Doesn't seem like enough to panic yet and get him off the team. It's still two months until camp.
With the deal not happening, they'd have James Neal today, not guaranteed to be locked in for four years. If we were partly into the season, Neal's performance was on par with 18-19 and then we traded him for Lucic under the same terms, it'd be easier to accept. They'd be closer to poor attitude and poor performance etc to be materially impacting the success of the team and making some type of move, if the only one out there, a critical one.
Now you have Milan Lucic for 4 years. The odds of being able to move him without it costing significantly to do so are very very low.