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If you strip away some of the Oilers and Flames drama, really is an interesting case of a player and his mentality, fitness, motivation and abilities and the yo yo ride he has been on.

Vegas picked him, a perennial 20 goal scorer, and others up in the expansion draft with the thought to flip those guys at the deadline to gain picks in the draft, but then the team and Neal was exceeding expectations and they made a playoff run, but got no return for Neal and others.

Comes to the Flames as an x factor, but one I was excited about, to bolster the woeful secondary scoring where outside of JG and SM, as the team was and is thin at pure goal scoring and nothing really indicated he was anything but a pure goal scorer and a big body. But he did very little, clearly, here.

Obviously the long term contract and an overall the comfy contract here made him unmotivated. In Vegas he was a UFA and was motivated to show that the Pens made a mistake when they gave him up.

And look, he flips the switch on again like he did in Vegas, to prove the Flames made a mistake, in the first 2 months of last season and racked up goals. Goals are not easy to score in the league and he was potting them at will early on. And just like that, he seemingly proved his point to himself and whoever else, and the flip was then switched off in his head for the rest of last season and now this.

It is somewhat fascinating that the player still has the pure ability to score goals but so instantly and dramtically refuses to work at his game/fitness/whatever as he gets older, to make the most of that talent.