Quote:
Originally Posted by kehatch
A year ago most of us were ecstatic to get Neal. A month ago most of us felt the Lucic contract was one of the worst in the NHL and were happy the Oilers were stuck with it.
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Agreed ... I was happy on Neal but concerned about term.
Lucic still has a terrible contract, don't think many are saying it's a good one now.
If you asked me three weeks ago if I wanted Lucic on the team I would have said NO!
If you asked me three weeks ago if I wanted Neal off the team I would have said YES!
This isn't just bad news, it's an exchange of bad news, and in that it's not out of the realm of expectation to try and understand the move from each team's perspective.
I took two days and wrote an article with assumptions in it. Those have been either nodded at or argued with, but for me they seem to line up. So Calgary's left with a better fit, and potentially less chaos in the dressing room, and with a contract that is worse but not relevant if ownership refused to buy out Neal in the first place.
I think the worse hypocritical move would be to suggest Neal was going to bounce back and score 25, and now say he's washed up. I was hoping his terrible shooting percentage would suggest that blind ass luck was bound to help him, but most of us just couldn't figure out where to fit the guy to even give him a chance of scoring.
So glad that's not a worry any more honestly.