Treliving's Talk

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

21 minutes worth of penalties in 2 games element.

But only 4 that hurt the team in any way, and you could argue the other 17 played a role in getting the team back on track in game one.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

Right now Lucic is costing Bennett icetime and that doesn't sit well with me.

Well they play on a line so that's not true, unless you mean 2nd powerplay time or his penalties disrupting flow.

Really the 12 minors in two games (of which Lucic is partially to blame) has made getting four lines going next to impossible.

[Red_Baron]

A lot of posters had their minds made up before Lucic stepped on the ice.



In the season opener, Neal looked as slow as he did last year and is the same defensive liability that he was here. I certainly do not miss having him.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Well they play on a line so that's not true, unless you mean 2nd powerplay time or his penalties disrupting flow.

Really the 12 minors in two games (of which Lucic is partially to blame) has made getting four lines going next to impossible.

So far in 2 games Lucic has almost 4 minutes of PP time and Bennett has 9 seconds.

Obviously I don't think much of Bennett's offense, but uh, that's not how I'd be drawing things up.

[Inferno]

I didn't like the trade when it happened but I'm warming up to Lucic. He's overpaid but I like the presence he brings and his effort is better than Neal showed last season.

[heep223]

I am completely fine with Lucic punching people in the mouth.

[Dienasty]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

Right now Lucic is costing Bennett icetime and that doesn't sit well with me.

So you bemoan Lucic for taking penalties (10 minute misconduct), then bemoan that he is stealing Bennett's ice time.

Last I checked if you are rolling 5 V 5 with 11 forwards for 10 minutes Bennett's ice time should increase... no?

[Tyler]

In 4 years, Sam Bennett has done nothing to show he deserves PP2 time.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

So far in 2 games Lucic has almost 4 minutes of PP time and Bennett has 9 seconds.

Obviously I don't think much of Bennett's offense, but uh, that's not how I'd be drawing things up.

Nope me neither.

[The Yen Man]

Originally Posted by Red_Baron

A lot of posters had their minds made up before Lucic stepped on the ice.



In the season opener, Neal looked as slow as he did last year and is the same defensive liability that he was here. I certainly do not miss having him.

Pretty much this. I don't think Lucic has stood out good or bad. He's been ok at what he's been brought in to do. I'd still rather have him than Neal. At least Lucic backchecks, and can separate people from the puck. Neal, when he's not scoring, is just absolutely useless, and I'd argue detrimental to have on the ice defensively.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Tyler

In 4 years, Sam Bennett has done nothing to show he deserves PP2 time.

And Lucic has?

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Red_Baron

A lot of posters had their minds made up before Lucic stepped on the ice.



In the season opener, Neal looked as slow as he did last year and is the same defensive liability that he was here. I certainly do not miss having him.

Well yeah because I watched a lot of Oilers games last season. He was awful last season and we only have to go through the E=NG thread to see here that a lot of fans here have talked themselves into doing a 180 on Lucic but I won't until I see a proper sample size.

Neal did score two goals including the game winning goal on Saturday and with goal scorers you typically have to take the good with the bad and we will have to see if Lucic can do anything good outside of rough up the odd player. With Neal it was mostly bad last season the Flames but the Flames didn't stick with him long enough to see the good. Maybe things were too toxic but I sense the coach just didn't like the player from day one much like Hartley with Baertschi. I will go back to my initial thoughts from the day the trade happened as I simply think Treliving should have waited a year as we know the Oilers would have still been willing to unload Lucic next offseason. That said I'm hoping for the best and I'm certainly not cheering for Lucic to fail. Time will tell.

[the2bears]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Well yeah because I watched a lot of Oilers games last season. He was awful last season and we only have to go through the E=NG thread to see here that a lot of fans here have talked themselves into doing a 180 on Lucic but I won't until I see a proper sample size.

Neal did score two goals including the game winning goal on Saturday and with goal scorers you typically have to take the good with the bad and we will have to see if Lucic can do anything good outside of rough up the odd player. With Neal it was mostly bad last season the Flames but the Flames didn't stick with him long enough to see the good. Maybe things were too toxic but I sense the coach just didn't like the player from day one much like Hartley with Baertschi. I will go back to my initial thoughts from the day the trade happened as I simply think Treliving should have waited a year as we know the Oilers would have still been willing to unload Lucic next offseason.

Lucic just has to provide more than Neal did/would have here. That's it.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Well yeah because I watched a lot of Oilers games last season. He was awful last season and we only have to go through the E=NG thread to see here that a lot of fans here have talked themselves into doing a 180 on Lucic but I won't until I see a proper sample size.

Neal did score two goals including the game winning goal on Saturday and with goal scorers you typically have to take the good with the bad and we will have to see if Lucic can do anything good outside of rough up the odd player. With Neal it was mostly bad last season the Flames but the Flames didn't stick with him long enough to see the good. Maybe things were too toxic but I sense the coach just didn't like the player from day one much like Hartley with Baertschi. I will go back to my initial thoughts from the day the trade happened as I simply think Treliving should have waited a year as we know the Oilers would have still been willing to unload Lucic next offseason. That said I'm hoping for the best and I'm certainly not cheering for Lucic to fail. Time will tell.

That's not really fair

I think it speaks more to the average fan just not wanting to go through the rest of Neal's contract than it is changing their tune on Lucic. He isn't productive. He isn't going to be productive. He isn't fast. He isn't going to be fast.

But he also isn't Neal.

[Cleveland Steam Whistle]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

And Lucic has?

Well, I find the 4 year statement completely arbitrary, and I'm not sure why it has to one vs. the other. But in the last 4 years, Lucic has been more offensively inclined than Bennett, by about 40 points. Last year was the only year Bennett bested him offensively, and both were pretty disappointing totals IMO.

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by Bingo

...He isn't productive. He isn't going to be productive. He isn't fast. He isn't going to be fast.

But he also isn't Neal.

I am sorta/kinda in this camp now.

I was vocally disappointed about the trade earlier. My logic was that if Neal re-finds his gear, he has a significantly better upside than Lucic. And, if paired with McDavid, Neal has a high potential to find his scoring cherry-picker touch. Lucic is way past his top performance and has no chance of becoming a high-scorer. So, in theory, we have lost in this trade.

But having seen Lucic play the past two games, I am slowly changing my negative view of it. He is very intimidating on ice and it shows. Opposing players are trying to avoid him. He is also useful in front of the net - very hard for defensemen to move him away, hard for goalies to see through. We did not have anyone in that role last season and we definitely could have used someone like that. So, yes, a dinosaur, but a Maroon-like dinosaur. Friedman has mentioned one of the GM's saying in reference to Maroon last season that nobody knows how to play against a dinosaur anymore. So, I am hoping for Lucic to fill in this role of an efficient dinosaur. And if he scores 10-12 goals along the way - even better.

And, to be fair, I always thought there was something wrong about Neal that makes him jump from team to team. So, it is plausible, he was causing some issues in the locker room that we don't know (and we'll never know for sure, likely).

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Well yeah because I watched a lot of Oilers games last season. He was awful last season and we only have to go through the E=NG thread to see here that a lot of fans here have talked themselves into doing a 180 on Lucic but I won't until I see a proper sample size.

Neal did score two goals including the game winning goal on Saturday and with goal scorers you typically have to take the good with the bad and we will have to see if Lucic can do anything good outside of rough up the odd player. With Neal it was mostly bad last season the Flames but the Flames didn't stick with him long enough to see the good. Maybe things were too toxic but I sense the coach just didn't like the player from day one much like Hartley with Baertschi. I will go back to my initial thoughts from the day the trade happened as I simply think Treliving should have waited a year as we know the Oilers would have still been willing to unload Lucic next offseason. That said I'm hoping for the best and I'm certainly not cheering for Lucic to fail. Time will tell.

Does James Neal score two goals in his first two games if he was still playing in Calgary? I seriously doubt it. It has been brought up ad nauseum, but there are rather important contextual considerations to correctly grasping this trade. Without getting into all of them, most simply put: Neal was never going to play top-six or on the PP here in Calgary this year. It just was not going to happen. And now here he is playing on the top line with McDavid; both his goals were powerplay goals, and the guy he replaced on that line has no points in his first two games. That player was a signed PTO who scored 3 ES goals in his first three Oilers games last season.

Is Neal really an upgrade on Lucic? It looks to me like the only thing he has done was to take Alex Chaisson’s spot in the Oilers top-six, and has arguably done little more than replace a replacement-level player.

I think the best summary to be made of that trade might be this: Neal doesn’t make the Oilers any better, and Lucic doesn’t make the Flames any worse. That’s bad for Edmonton.


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[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Does James Neal score two goals in his first two games if he was still playing in Calgary?

We will never know for sure will we?

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

We will never know for sure will we?

We may not know, but given that Neal would have been patrolling the fourth line here it seems extremely unlikely: so far in Edmonton he is fourth among forwards in ice-time, and fourth in PPTOI.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

We may not know, but given that Neal would have been patrolling the fourth line here it seems extremely unlikely: so far in Edmonton he is fourth among forwards in ice-time, and fourth in PPTOI.

So you do have a crystal ball that enables you to view alternate realities with certainty?