Quote:
Originally Posted by thefoss1957
@Ricosuave asked for outsider opinion on the Neal/Lucic trade.
Bad contract for bad contract deal, to gain a little cap space?
I feel that the Neal/Peters personal dynamic must have been the driving factor, as it must have been worse than assumed. Why else trade within the division? Why take the Oil's mistake?
The trade leaves more questions than answers, buying out gains nothing, the market for Lucic is soft on spinning him off near the trade deadline, and there was no clear need to muscle up the lineup.
The Flames now have an irritant in Matt T. and some muscle in Lucic, but, at the cost of putting a slower skater out in your forward set. Lucic, I expect, will only be used at ES and as a PP screener, lacking the versatility that Neal has demonstrated.
But, if Neal didn't want to be in Calgary, or had a fundamental antagonism with Peters, then a bad contract for bad contract "change of scenery" move may have been the only option.
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We did have a clear need to add muscle though. Our star player is tiny and many of our top young forwards aren’t huge either (Mangiapane, Dube, Phillips, Svenningson, Peterson, Zav, Koumoubtzis, etc). The whistles get put away in the playoffs and you need powerforwards or physical players to help make room for the smaller players by winning board battles, protecting pucks, screening goalies. We just lost Hathaway. The team was looking extremely soft. Yeah it’s a skill and skating league but powerforwards still have a valuable role. Lucic may not be as offensive as the past but we can still badly use his size, strength and physicality.
I think one element that is underrated is that big hits tend to fire up the fans which in turn gives energy to the Flames. You want at least one forward who can throw some real bangers in a Canadian market. Firing up the home fans can really help the team in turn.
Neal did not demonstrate any versatility for us. Couldn’t get anything out of him in any situation. He dragged lines down with his lazy unengaged floaty slow play. It sounds like I’m exaggerating but it was actually that bad!