Quote:
Originally Posted by Flash Walken
He was supposed to be a difference maker and was so bad the Flames chose not to play him. Think of how bad the organization thought his play was if they were willing to sit him in year 1 of a 5 year deal in the most important game of their season.
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This is a completely irrelevant argument. No one is arguing Neal wasn't terrible and that he completely missed the mark of what was expected. But he was during the season as well, and the team made the necessary adjustments to finish first overall in the West. The downfall was that the players who picked up the slack in the regular season - the top line, Tkachuk, Backlund, all the D, didn't do so in the POs. You could say that Neal's play didn't drop off in the POs because it was never up to begin with, whereas the vast majority of the rest of the team saw their levels of play drop significantly.