I would, personally, rather just keep Lucic even at a bloated cap hit to face punch people for the remainder of his career. Sure it's too much money, but at least the oil are paying for part of it.
If he punches (or even shoves) just one person, he will already be more impactful than James Neal. That makes this trade a total win. The oil are paying more for a more useless player.
Plus I have a feeling that if it gets really bad for lucic, there's much more precedence for him retiring on permanent IR for his back problems. I don't see any realistic scenario for that happening with Neal (and I think his ego is way too big to come even close.)
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