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Originally Posted by Erick Estrada
Lots of mental gymnastics going on in this thread. It will be interesting to see how this thread ages when we get into the season. I can't be the only person that watched Oilers games last season. I recall plenty of times laughing at my TV watching him struggle to make the simplest of passes. I know others saw how bad he was because I frequent the Oilers are No Good thread. I'm highly skeptical that by next season's end opinions will be the same as they are today.
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Brouwer in his 2nd year with the Flames was better than Neal. Lucic was certainly bad and laughed at for proper reasons, but people were seeing Neal with rose coloured glasses because of his past, despite being months in with poor performance. Neal was a total black hole that was covered up by a team playing extremely well that got himself healthy scratched by the playoffs.
The only mental gymnastics is those still excusing Neal as anything but a bad version of Brouwer, that we managed to get rid of for a bad contract who at least has some backbone and will play physical no matter how slow he is. The excuses continued for Neal even through the playoffs. One of these 2 bad players have a role they can still play, and that player is not Neal.
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I still believe Neal is saving his best for the playoffs
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Your post from December (wasn't looking for it, found while searching for playoff comments)
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Neal has been pretty bad of late but he's not going anywhere and the team is playing as well as it has in decades so as of now I really don't feel the need to obsess over his play because it's worrying about something that's out of anyone's control. No team is going to take him off the Flames hands right now so we just have to accept that he's a long term fixture for the foreseeable future.
The fixation on Neal here seems to be a typical internet thing these days as I see this same behavior on other fan sites I frequent. A lot of fans need to have a whipping boy. Regardless of how the team fares some fans need something to be unhappy about. Someone that they can vent on.
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A team did take him, we have Lucic now for better or worse.
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Did you watch the playoffs last season?
He knows when it actually matters...guy has been to the finals two years in a row. It wouldn't be all that shocking if he is saving putting his body on the line for when it really matters. Its not like the Flames are in a playoff race, they have clinched in February
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Everyone hoped that Neal would shift a gear come playoffs, instead he litteraly got stuck in neutral...
Cue controller disconnect gif, and this play was the last time Neal ever wore the Flames jersey.