[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Did you miss the site intention of killing the trade topic and starting a "this is where we are" more positive Lucic topic?

Thanked for this.

By all indications the buy out wasn't an option which turns you to the bring him back option or trade him for what you can.

At least they tacked +750K to the Oilers misery in exchange for equal savings on the new boat anchor.

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.

Does Neal provide speed?
Was Neal going to have a top six role and produce in Calgary?
Does Neal play a physical game and protect teammates?

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.

It's great that you have recognized a need for speed from the playoffs, but you'd have to turn James Neal into that on the trade market. I'm guessing that would be a tough summer, and look very much like the one that Treliving just had.

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.

Originally Posted by Textcritic

The problems in the playoffs last year were never going to be fixed by adding a single player. But there are varying interpretations of what happened against Colorado in Round One, and I am of the opinion that the biggest correction for the Flames needed to occur is psychological.

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.

I find it impossible to believe that you do not understand unless you are simply ignoring the numerous posts which point clearly to the circumstances behind Lucic's addition. At the end of the day, Lucic's presence provides some modest cap relief, and replaces a player that had already proved to be a very expensive hole. At the end of the day it is neither a significant expectation that Lucic can be even slightly better than the player he has replaced, nor is it a small matter if it provides even a slight improvement overall.

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.

It seems to me that someone can only be this irate about Milan Lucic if they actually expected Treliving to trade James Neal for a speedy scoring winger for whom you pine. If there is any delusion occurring in this thread, it is the insinuation that something like this was ever even possible in the first place.

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.