Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
The comments about Neal's dressing-room value and personality are hard to figure out. He seems to be a big personality. Confident. But he also rubs some people the wrong way.
Back before the Flames signed him, I looked up a few articles from his previous cities, and several of them were not complementary. An article from Pittsburgh said "his act wears thin after a while" and suggested the rest of the team weren't sad to see him go. One from Nashville said he was a polarizing personality. Hard to say what happens behind closed doors, but there does seem to be something of a cloud around Neal.
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At one point, he was a known "dirty" player. Not Matt Cooke, but ... dirty. Kinda guy who pokes people in piles, butt-ends people as they go to the bench, the little nasty stuff, and a few bigger incidents. So I can see him being polarizing at best. But he cleaned that stuff up in Vegas.