Quote:
Originally Posted by topfiverecords
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.
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31 going on 32 year olds don't go year to year with equal chances of getting better, staying the same or getting worse.
They all decline.
He could bounce back and then decline at a more normal rate but this isn't flipping coins.
If Neal doesn't bounce back he's a guy that can only score on a line that won't give him the opportunities to score. Heck he may not be even given the chance to bounce back because there's no room for him in the top six in Calgary.
Lucic will be what he is. Limited offense and hopefully big and scary. But he's not being prevented from doing what he's supposed to do by not getting out with the players he needs in the first place.