[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by CN10

Spoiler!

I don't get what Calgary's reasoning is on this, unless they think Lucic has some sort of Dubnyk/Schultz resurgence in him once away from that no good organization. Even if Lucic gets back to his power forward ways of old (unlikely given the Flames are a rush based team and he can't skate well anymore) he's still a $5.4M third line LW as he's worse than Tkachuk and Gaudreau even when he was in his prime.

I thought Neal had a decent chance of bouncing back playing as the #2RW with Tkachuk and Backlund on a line that generates offensive off the cycle. He needed players who can carry/hold and distribute the puck to him in shooting positions. It was obvious Jankowski and Bennett were not those players, so it was a square peg round hole situation all of last year for him. I thought the organization would give him another opportunity this year but obviously the relationship must have been broken to the point where that shot wasn't going to happen.

The advanced stats posted earlier give some hope that perhaps crappy Neal was actually a bit worse than crappy Lucic, coupled with evidently saving a bit of money and perhaps getting a pick out of the swap, maybe this palatable. That is obviously contingent on not having to protect Lucic during the expansion draft which we should no soon enough (if the Flames agreed to keep the NMC or voided it). Perhaps having him on the team makes the rest of the guys play a bit bigger so you get some value out his presence that isn't recorded on the stat sheet (as Gaudreau mentioned that Big Ern helped them to do). He at least hits so if both him and Neal will be playing down the lineup on a boat anchor of a contract I suppose an enforcer is a better fit than a sniper that can't get a good shot off because he's behind the play.

Here's hoping that Lucic is the one to bounce back to near 20G & 40P like his days of old and not Neal, but the odds indicate that it's Neal who's primed for the bounce back. He'll either be with McDavid or RNH (both of whom are way better puck distributors than Jankowski) plus see a ton of power play time given the Oilers lack of good NHL forwards. Lucic will likely slot in on the third or fourth line and be counted on to lay the body and work to get the puck to his more talented (than he had on the Oilers) line mates. He might see PP2 time as the net front guy but I think a good season for him would be 15G and 30P only.

I have a feeling the deal blows up in Tre's face and we've just improved our rival, but I would love to be wrong. Hopefully the conditional pick is real and a good one and the owners use the cash savings between the rest of Neal and Lucic's contract term to improve the pro scouting to the point where we can avoid some of these bad fit UFA contracts that we have seen recently.

Hmm. Those are some interesting points. I mean, I didn’t read any of them because wall of text, but still.