Yeah Neal is the better ES goal scorer over the last couple seasons - so there is a chance he rebounds in that area for sure. And really that's what the 3rd rounder is based on.
The big thing that the Oilers are banking on for Neal is he can get back to his ES scoring ways and a lot of that is shooting percentage based.
The big thing that stands out for me when looking back at Neal prior to last year was that he was a guy that's shooting percentage really drove up his goal total - as he really out performed his "expected goals".
When you look back at the 3 years prior to last year for each of these guys it's kind of remarkable how similar they are from an advanced stat and from a production perspective.
Really Neal was the better goal scorer, but everything else was pretty close.
Which really raises the question of why we gave Neal the contract we gave him to start with...especially since by that point the Lucic contract was seen as bad.