Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts
He was brought in to play with Johnny and Monny. He was used on the line after every PK. He just sucked. Lindholm clicked better.
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Neal just seemed to want to kind of crash the net. I think when he was younger he was an expert at crashing the net...as he got older, he was sort of doing it but not that well.
Monahan and Lindholm were better trigger men and knew how to read plays and get in position for Gaudreau. To be fair to Neal, he was kind of the product of bad scouting too. The Gaudreau/Monahan line didn't need another pure trigger man, which Monahan was elite at. They needed someone who could be a second trigger option but also handle the puck, at a basic level, and take advantage of the room Gaudreau created.
Hudler, Lindholm and Tkachuk all ended up having great chemistry with Gaudreau. So the type of player who could fill that role was probably of a pretty wide range. Just not James Neal.