Quote:
Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina
If someone doesn't want to be on your team, you can't let that fester.
We can say they should have bought him out instead, but that's really an ownership decision.
So within the possible trades available for the team - really a Lucic type of deal was the only likely fit.
I maintain the mistake was the signing. I don't buy into the Lucic deal compounding it. In fact, allowing Neal to remain may have also compounded it.
|
Not making any moves to improve the right side in the off-season was also a disaster as moving Neal made a weak position even weaker. Neal was signed because our RW depth is/was atrocious. He was clearly scouted wrong, as there's no way he'd get deployed with Backlund, and Peters (rightfully) seemed to have Lindholm slotted as RW #1 right from the get go. So where was Neal supposed to fit in?
Big flip flop for me all over the place. I wanted Neal back and was excited what a proper offseason could do for him. Then I was happy with the deal when hearing Neal wasn't particularly happy here - although I'm not sure I can blame him, as he's a PP specialist and one-dimensional player, and after we signed him we didn't use him for either. The scouts and Tree really screwed this up, and then Peters didn't work with the player all that well to build a spot that worked for both sides.
Now we get to watch Peters panic with his roster as he cycles everyone in and out only to end up doing the same thing Gulutzan did which was leave Frolik there, even though the team itself isn't having any real success (this season).
The roster lacks a good #3 centre, and general RW depth. Pretty big warts, which while Tree has tried to address, he has failed to. This will be where Tree really defines himself as a GM in my eyes. He's up against the cap, he's spent a good amount of futures to get the roster to this point so the prospect pool is pretty sub-par, and now he's had a team get smoked in the playoffs and come out of the gate looking rattled and inadequate. It's on the players in place to knock off the rust, but given how last year played out - the questions of "what are the Calgary Flames" is valid. It's not like we've had any level of continued success, and the roster issues are quite apparent (particularly with Treliving very publicly attempting to address them over the last few months). Does he go down the Darryl Sutter "what the hell do I do now" style of roster adjustments if the team falters, or does he continue to trust the process and show patience. I'd argue the Lucic deal was more in line with Darryl Sutter's implosion than the latter.