Quote:
Originally Posted by New Era
The bottom line is that Treliving's job is to make Calgary better, which he clearly did not. Lucic is a downgrade from Neal, even the James Neal that shat the bed for the Flames last year. The biggest problem with this trade is it makes the Flames worse, now and for the next three years.
Neal is a better fit in Edmonton, and makes the Oilers marginally better, but not enough to be concerned about IMO. I hope he scores 15 more PP goals this year and Calgary gets that draft pick. But the reality is the Oilers will only score so many PP goals, so it is the rest of the game that matters. The Oilers don't have enough of anything to be competitive. Seriously, they are playing McDavid and Draisatl almost 30 minutes a game while beating the bottom feeders from last year's standings. They will come crashing back to earth quickly. You can't survive on one line in the NHL. They're done.
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Yeah but that's not the bottom line.
Neal may continue his torrid pace, find his defensive game and suddenly become a great all around player ... then you'd have a bottom line.
But James Neal in his last year in Nashville, his only year in Vegas and then even more so his year in Calgary is a net negative contributor to hockey teams. If he's fixed that this year then Calgary has compounded their problem in the trade.
If he hasn't then the Flames aren't worse with a net zero contributor with intangibles. It's garbage for garbage, and the garbage that's here wants to be here.