Quote:
Originally Posted by Vinny01
I have disagreed with you on this before but as time has passed the Neal signing has aged very poorly as you could argue it set the table for Tkachuk to force his way out 4 years later. The cap space to offer him a longer term more lucrative deal was tied up in a horrible Neal/Lucic contract.
However the fact Noah Dobson has turned into a 50pt Dman each of the past 2 seasons and is a 6’4 right shot D it is hard to determine which is worse but I still lean toward Hamonic. It would have been a landslide had the Flames not beat the Knights in game 82 on the back of 4 goals for Mark Jankowski. Carolina finished 1 point behind the Flames and jumped to the 2nd pick. Had the Flames given up a pick that could have allowed them to draft Brady Tkachuk that would have been a Dora or offense.
Justification for both moves:
Hamonic- after the Flsmes surged back into the playoffs after missing terribly in 2016 they were swept. The Oilers took a huge step and pushed the Ducks to game 7 of the second round and everyone was anointing them. The Flames wanted to build the best D in the league with the Giordano-Hamilton pairing being one of the leagues best. They paid up the nose for Hamonic who was supposed to form a 1b pairing with Brodie. A year later Hamilton is gone and Hanifin comes in and is paired with Hamonic. Both Brodie and Hanifin improved vastly when moved away from Hamonic.
Neal- the Flames missed the playoffs in the first year after making the big Hamonic and Smith trades. They struggled to score goals the previous year and needed to improve their offense. They added Elias Lindholm in trade and Derek Ryan in free agency but did lose top 6 forward from the previous year Ferland in the Lindholm deal. Neal had 10 straight 20+ goal seasons including a year over 30 and a year at 40. He was the best free agent goal scorer on the market and 30 years old. Lindholm would end up fitting like a glove with Monahan and Gaudreau and they tried Neal with Backlund and Tkachuk but he didn’t fit so Frolik found his way back there.
The Neal signing may have prevented the Flames from having the money to sign Tkachuk to a 6-8 year deal a year later and the Hamonic trade left the Flames pretty asset poor when they were the best team in the West and hurt their ability to make other deals by missing those picks and prospects. This team would be in a different situation today if they had Dobson on their blueline. The Neal signing has closed the gap but the Hamonic trade is still the worst in my opinion
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The cap hit is my main argument and I’m simply going from hindsight. Both moves kinda made sense from an “on paper” perspective. Though what I’ve learned about Neal’s off ice stuff since should have been known by insiders ahead of the trade.