Quote:
Originally Posted by Bingo
...He isn't productive. He isn't going to be productive. He isn't fast. He isn't going to be fast.
But he also isn't Neal.
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I am sorta/kinda in this camp now.
I was vocally disappointed about the trade earlier. My logic was that if Neal re-finds his gear, he has a significantly better upside than Lucic. And, if paired with McDavid, Neal has a high potential to find his scoring cherry-picker touch. Lucic is way past his top performance and has no chance of becoming a high-scorer. So, in theory, we have lost in this trade.
But having seen Lucic play the past two games, I am slowly changing my negative view of it. He is very intimidating on ice and it shows. Opposing players are trying to avoid him. He is also useful in front of the net - very hard for defensemen to move him away, hard for goalies to see through. We did not have anyone in that role last season and we definitely could have used someone like that. So, yes, a dinosaur, but a Maroon-like dinosaur. Friedman has mentioned one of the GM's saying in reference to Maroon last season that nobody knows how to play against a dinosaur anymore. So, I am hoping for Lucic to fill in this role of an efficient dinosaur. And if he scores 10-12 goals along the way - even better.
And, to be fair, I always thought there was something wrong about Neal that makes him jump from team to team. So, it is plausible, he was causing some issues in the locker room that we don't know (and we'll never know for sure, likely).