Watching Neal last year is what convinces me that this is a good trade for Calgary. He just looked so bad and so different from what I remember about him. He used to play with an edge, possess a hard shot, and skate pretty well. He showed none of those characteristics.
Here's a breakdown of his 7 goals:
Oct 11 - Gift from Bennett, taps it into a wide open net.
Oct 25 - Down 8-0 against PIT and scores on a weird flutter puck that the goalie should've stopped (no screen).
Nov 1 - Beauty one-knee top corner against Avs.
Dec 31 - Deflection in front of net from Andersson point shot.
Jan 18 - Deflection in front of net on PP.
Mar 29 - PP goal that everyone thought was Monahan's but hit Neal's skate.
Apr 1 - Bangs in a ridiculous pass by Janko from the corner.
I'm not saying that all goals need to be beauties, but only 1/7 was special. I can't see his shooting percentage reverting to the mean based off of what his goals indicated. Neal will have to actually step up his game in order to see better results.
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