[Huntingwhale]

Originally Posted by New Era

Thanked for this.



And why would the buy out not be an option? They would have had to have paid $11.5M on a buy out, but are instead on the hook for $18M (cap space, not actual dollars). It could have been an ownership decision, but if they did make that call, I question their decision making.



Man, this gets repetitive.

Neal was a mistake. We all acknowledge that. Neal was gone, one way or another. He is irrelevant. The important thing was to address the needs of the team, not just move a bad contract for another. The team needs were speed and another finisher. You were not going to get that in a return for Neal, so instead focus on minimizing your mistake by making another. Lucic is just another mistake.



No, you didn't. You could have offloaded him for nothing and the team would have been better off. The goal with Neal was to dump the salary and not inflict further damage on the team. By making the swap of one bad contract for another you just hurt the team further. Buy the guy out and move on with minimal damage. At least you would have had another $3.8M to play with, and no Milan Lucic to worry about.



What happened to the Flames was not psychological. They got out-skated, out-scored, and just flat out out-played. Nothing psychological in that. They just didn't step their game up when they needed to. If anything, they were not prepared for the game the Avs were going to bring at them, and they never adjusted during or between games. That problem is elsewhere.



Modest cap relief? No, it's not modest. You gain the money for a league minimum player. That is all of the cap relief you got out of the transaction. If they had bought out Neal, that would have been modest cap relief and only cost the Flames $1.9M a season, freeing up over $3M to find another player that could actually contribute in the areas where the Flames needed help.



Yeah, that's it. That was the expectation all the time. I fully expected Treliving to trade James Neal for Alex Ovechkin. You got me there. Any other ridiculous bull#### you want to throw into the mix as well, because I said none of what you are suggesting.

What I have said is that Milan Lucic is a crap hockey player that does not address the needs of the hockey team. Lucic can't skate and can't do anything at speed, which is a requirement to play in the current NHL. He is a bad fit for a team looking for speed and scoring. PERIOD. Nothing more to read into that. Lucic is slow and can't score, so he never should have been a target for the team in the first place. And I don't care if he was the only option out there, you make moves to address needs, not just make moves to make moves. Bringing Lucic in makes the team even slower, less skilled, and for pretty much the same money plus Reider. Yeah, we got rid of a malcontent, but at what price? We're not better, we're worse.

I hated the trade at the time, hated the salary. And most of all I miss making fun of the Oilers for having one of the top 5 worst contracts in the entire league. I used to love nothing more then reading articles about how buyout proof it was. And it truly does suck that the contract is on our team now.

Yet none of us are the ones who sign his paycheck or signed off on the trade form. Lucic isn't also no where near as dirty as Marchment was and by all accounts is a good dude. So I don't really see the fault in at least attempting to like him or what he brings to the team. There's nothing any of us can do, except give him a chance and cheer him on to do good things. I don't see any problem with that. God forbid a bunch of teenagers on HF mock us for it.

Also this is the one of the few threads on the entire internet about liking Lucic. God forbid some of us actually show some optimism about the guy and cheer for a Flames' player. After all the thread name says "I like Milan Lucic".

And further, if people are going to #### all over posters for saying positive things about the Oiler's players in the E-NG thread since ''that's not the place to do it'', then people should get #### on here for crapping all over Lucic in a positive thread about him.

Make a ''I hate Milan Lucic'' thread if you really need to get it off your chest. This isn't the thread for that.