Ongoing thread for Neal/Lucic discussion

[CaptainYooh]

While I do understand the math and the logic of this trade, this is still a crap-for-crap trade with more downside to Calgary than to Edmonton. Neal had only one bad season and there is a reasonable expectation of him rebounding to have a better or even a much better season on McDavid's wing. Lucic had been in Edmonton for three seasons with both goal and point production declining in each one. There is no expectation of Lucic rebounding, as he cannot play on the top wing anymore. So, while Edmonton's potential reward in this crappy trade is a scoring top-line winger, Calgary's potential reward is a hugely overpriced Hathaway that can add some grit to the 3rd or 4th line. That's it.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Aarongavey

Yes I would say if they are in the same place next year they are knocking on the door. I think when you go in you go all in and get real quality pieces for a run. Trading high picks for Elliott, Smith and Stone is not trading picks for high quality pieces. But I do think they have traded too many picks too early in their window. Now may be the time but that would mean close to half a decade without many picks in the first 3 rounds. That will undoubtedly catch up with the team in 3 or 4 years.

I'm all for keeping their picks, believe me.

Nothing made me happier to see the Flames step to the damn podium on a Friday for once this year.

But teams that find 2 NHLers in a draft year have a good year. Years of three in a draft year build contenders.

Less picks puts all that at jeopardy for sure, but their haul in some of these years is indicating they look to have dodged that bullet.

2015 - no first, only 5 picks but find Andersson, Kylington and Mangiapane. Great draft

2016 - no pick loss issues

2017 - no 2nd, draft Valimaki and have some value in Ruzicka and Sveningsson. Time will tell

2018 - No 1, 2, or 3, and too early to judge the rest but they are being lauded for finding value on all five picks they did make.

The scouting group has been bailing out the draft pick deficiency.

[Vinny01]

I think I would have liked this deal more if the Kadri trade went through. I would be legit excited about all the shift disturbers the Flames would have and would probably be happier with adding an enforcer like Lucic that could get involved if things got a little crazy.

Gaudreau-Monahan-Lindholm
Tkachuk-Kadri-Bennett
Dube-Backlund-Mangipane
Lucic-Ryan-Czarnik

Giordano-Anderson
Hanifin-Hamonic
Valimaki-Kylington

Rittich
Talbot

The Kadri and Lucic trades would have opened up $2.4M in space, Buyoit Stone saves 2.3M and trade Frolik for cap space for 4.3 bringing the total to $9M in additional cap which would be enough for Tkachuk, Bennett, Rittich, Mangipane.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

Acquired as a bottom six forward that is tough and intimidating to play in a game that is progressively becoming more and more about speed, skill, vision, playmaking, strength and strategic defending.

It already has failed. We’re locked into 4 years of Lucic. There’s no escaping this deal if Lucic continues to slide to the point of being unplayable. Which is what we’ve been mocking the Oilers about for 3 years.

Now we’re paying a position locked bottom six 5.25 million.

At no point in time has anyone wanted Treliving to go out and give a bottom six player $5.25 x 4 so why go out and acquire one just because James Neal has put egg on your face.

Riiiiight ....

But with the deal not happening they have James Neal for four years.

Which of your shopping list do you think he possesses?
speed
skill
vision
playmaking
strength
strategic defending

Is that .5 for 6?

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by CanadaMatt

I'm not sure where you got this from. I don't see anybody advocating a "radical face lift". My take from this forum is that concerned folks would have been happy with the addition of a reliable 2nd line RW, which appears to be one of the biggest holes in the team

Would you admit that immediately after Game 5 against Colorado, you would have raised your eyebrows if somebody said that at the end of July, the Flames would have added only Talbot and Lucic to this team and seen the back of Hathaway, who left for a fairly marginal contract?

People keep mentioning 2nd overall, but you'll note that betting markets have the Flames ~10th to win next season. I think that a fair placement of where the Flames will be next year (i.e 4th or 5th in the conference) after Vegas, St Loius, Colorado and then battling with Dallas, Nashville, San Jose. for home ice in round 1

For the record I am 55% sure that the Lucic for Neal deal was a win.

I certainly didn't have Lucic on my off season shopping list, but then I didn't have getting rid of Neal at all that likely either.

I did discuss Talbot as a pretty good stopgap, but thought it unlikely with all the talk about him being a buddy of Carter Harts.

Hathaway I was happy to see leave at $1.5 x 4. He tripled his shooting percentage and was bound to get overpaid when he returns to his regular fourth line play. Glad it's not Calgary paying it.

[CanadaMatt]

Originally Posted by Bingo

I certainly didn't have Lucic on my off season shopping list, but then I didn't have getting rid of Neal at all that likely either.

I did discuss Talbot as a pretty good stopgap, but thought it unlikely with all the talk about him being a buddy of Carter Harts.

Hathaway I was happy to see leave at $1.5 x 4. He tripled his shooting percentage and was bound to get overpaid when he returns to his regular fourth line play. Glad it's not Calgary paying it.

Genuine question, not trying to be a smart-arse. When was the last time the Flames made a move that you immediately (not in hindsight) thought was a bad move (or mistake)?

Perhaps it’s been recently, I genuinely have no idea.

[TheOnlyBilko]

Originally Posted by TheSquatch

There's also a hugely long list of guys we'd never remember - Garret Bembridge anyone? .

You can go look through any teams past draft picks and you would be hard pressed to find a person that even works for the team that is gonna remember players drafted in Freaking ROUND 7 almost 20 years ago

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Riiiiight ....

But with the deal not happening they have James Neal for four years.

Which of your shopping list do you think he possesses?
speed
skill
vision
playmaking
strength
strategic defending

Is that .5 for 6?

Last year Neal was none of those things consistently.

There's a 33% chance he'd be the same player next year. 33% he'd be better. 33% he'd be worse. There's no data to accurately predict how he'd do next year. So why not wait and see which of the three it is.

All we know is he's disappointed with his performance and it's all talk right now of him training and working harder to not have a repeat of last year. The relationship with Peters is fractured and the rest of the roster possibly doesn't think too highly of Neal. Doesn't seem like enough to panic yet and get him off the team. It's still two months until camp.

With the deal not happening, they'd have James Neal today, not guaranteed to be locked in for four years. If we were partly into the season, Neal's performance was on par with 18-19 and then we traded him for Lucic under the same terms, it'd be easier to accept. They'd be closer to poor attitude and poor performance etc to be materially impacting the success of the team and making some type of move, if the only one out there, a critical one.

Now you have Milan Lucic for 4 years. The odds of being able to move him without it costing significantly to do so are very very low.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

Now you have Milan Lucic for 4 years. The odds of being able to move him without it costing significantly to do so are very very low.

Neal has 23M left on his deal. Lucic has 14M (after retention). If Neal has a comparable season, or even start of a season, to last year, he's infinitely harder to move than Lucic. Buyout is a different beast.

[TheOnlyBilko]

Originally Posted by TheSquatch

When your big draft "hit" in a 5 year span is David Moss.... there's an issue.

Dion Phaneuf is much better then Moss. Heck, Chuck Kobasew had several 20 goal seasons and he was drafted the same year as Moss.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by CanadaMatt

Genuine question, not trying to be a smart-arse. When was the last time the Flames made a move that you immediately (not in hindsight) thought was a bad move (or mistake)?

Perhaps it’s been recently, I genuinely have no idea.

Didn't love the Brouwer signing, thought Neal was too many years. There are two quick ones.

And really hate your inference, thanks.

[Owen15]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Yep.

Keep Neal
Trade him for Lucic

Honestly I think that was it.

I think Flames management and players were very concerned about pissing away next season with Neal drama and turmoil. There’s only a finite number of contending years for our core. He just had to go. It would’ve been a gamble to see if Neal could turn around his performance next year. I’m guessing it was a bigger gamble the guy wouldn’t wreck the team regardless if he turned it around.

Just my guess...

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

Neal has 23M left on his deal. Lucic has 14M (after retention). If Neal has a comparable season, or even start of a season, to last year, he's infinitely harder to move than Lucic. Buyout is a different beast.

Don't agree. If Neal has a comparable season he may become as infinitely hard to move as Lucic is. Sure we could retain Lucic's salary to get it down to 3 million, take back equivalent salary, and add picks and hope one of the other 29 teams are interested, but it seems unlikely or Edmonton would have done so. He's immovable.

$23M vs $14M in actual salary is only important to teams with low budgets looking to meet the cap floor. Not too many options and they could have taken Lucic from Edmonton at $6 million cap (even better) for late picks once the $3M bonus was paid then if they wanted him for that purpose.

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

While I do understand the math and the logic of this trade, this is still a crap-for-crap trade with more downside to Calgary than to Edmonton. Neal had only one bad season and there is a reasonable expectation of him rebounding to have a better or even a much better season on McDavid's wing. Lucic had been in Edmonton for three seasons with both goal and point production declining in each one. There is no expectation of Lucic rebounding, as he cannot play on the top wing anymore. So, while Edmonton's potential reward in this crappy trade is a scoring top-line winger, Calgary's potential reward is a hugely overpriced Hathaway that can add some grit to the 3rd or 4th line. That's it.

I tried to point out earlier in the thread that Lucic’s decline was correlated with deployment
Year 1 - ~50 points
Year 2 - 1st half - 27 points w/ Nuge, still on a >50 point pace
Year 2 - 2nd half - 7 pts w/ more time with assorted linemates like end of career Cammalleri, Khaira, etc.
Year 3 - most frequent line mates were Brodziak and Kassian - 20 pts. The Flames don’t even have players to offer to create a line that bad right now.

Comparatively, Neal got 41 and 44 points the two years prior. Not worse than Lucic, and with better linemates.

James Neal in Calgary - just a ridiculous lack of effort. The excuse about long off season, conditioning, etc. stopped being relevant 10-20 games in. Gifting him ice time should have rubbed some teammates the wrong way. I think it led to the situation with Frolik’s agent, and we know Backlund and Frolik have been close. His other teammates aren’t stupid. It’s insulting to pull down that paycheque and just not give a crap.

I am absolutely sure this is addition by subtraction because I watched his awful play. I can’t see how he endeared himself to his teammates any more than to the fans.

If we compare Lucic next year to anything, it should be what James Neal contributed as a Flame last year. Year over year, what does it do for the Flames? Not what Neal does for Edmonton next year.

For Lucic to bring more than Neal did last year, (and at 500 K less cap hit) is a low, low bar.

It’s weird. I used to like Lucic when he was helping beat Vancouver and then playing with iggy. Then he went to Edmonton and I really disliked him. All of a sudden I like him again.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

$23M vs $14M in actual salary is only important to teams with low budgets looking to meet the cap floor.

This is such a terrible take that it's so far removed from reality. No, $9,000,000.00 doesn't just matter to teams with low budgets. That's actual cash. And this is business where all they care about is money. Imagine having a discussion in any other context where you would say "9 million dollars doesn't matter" and yet it has become routine on Calgarypuck to act like actual cash doesn't matter. It's the most important part of contracts, not the least.

These are the same owners who tried to rip off Calgarians in their last deal with the City because they are cheap (or good business people, depending on your view).

And did you forget about Kotalik? They could have just buried him, instead they threw him with negative value because for some weird reason the team likes money.

For a lot of teams 9M is the difference from making money and losing money on the team. It's absurd to pretend it doesn't matter.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

Last year Neal was none of those things consistently.

There's a 33% chance he'd be the same player next year. 33% he'd be better. 33% he'd be worse. There's no data to accurately predict how he'd do next year. So why not wait and see which of the three it is.

All we know is he's disappointed with his performance and it's all talk right now of him training and working harder to not have a repeat of last year. The relationship with Peters is fractured and the rest of the roster possibly doesn't think too highly of Neal. Doesn't seem like enough to panic yet and get him off the team. It's still two months until camp.

With the deal not happening, they'd have James Neal today, not guaranteed to be locked in for four years. If we were partly into the season, Neal's performance was on par with 18-19 and then we traded him for Lucic under the same terms, it'd be easier to accept. They'd be closer to poor attitude and poor performance etc to be materially impacting the success of the team and making some type of move, if the only one out there, a critical one.

Now you have Milan Lucic for 4 years. The odds of being able to move him without it costing significantly to do so are very very low.

31 going on 32 year olds don't go year to year with equal chances of getting better, staying the same or getting worse.

They all decline.

He could bounce back and then decline at a more normal rate but this isn't flipping coins.

If Neal doesn't bounce back he's a guy that can only score on a line that won't give him the opportunities to score. Heck he may not be even given the chance to bounce back because there's no room for him in the top six in Calgary.

Lucic will be what he is. Limited offense and hopefully big and scary. But he's not being prevented from doing what he's supposed to do by not getting out with the players he needs in the first place.

[CanadaMatt]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Didn't love the Brouwer signing, thought Neal was too many years. There are two quick ones.

And really hate your inference, thanks.

Well you inferred earlier that a poster wanted the Lucic-Neal trade to fail, and therefore (by logical extension) the team to fail, so I am not really too concerned about your reaction to my inference

And, for the record, if this is your version of "didn't love the Brouwer signing", then I think my inference is justified.

Originally Posted by Bingo

The signing ...

I'd would have preferred 800K less or one year less but then I get it, UFA signings have a premium and this one doesn't worry me. In one of those Lucic discussions I mentioned something like I'd put a moratorium on any UFA signings over 5M and over 5 years. Glad to see Calgary didn't get into the madness of bonus up front contracts that can't be bought out for guys that clearly will lose a step in a 3-4 years.

The thing that jumped out to me the most was his secondary scoring consistency. Have always liked Brouwer but didn't realize how consistent he was, a huge plus. Loved the Treliving comments about bringing noise to the room. I don't think Giordano is the most vocal guy in the room, would be good to get someone that gets fed up with weak periods etc in the fold, though I admit that's a tight line ... the player has to be living up to the same bargain himself.

The way I see it, is that you're going to put a positive spin onto every move the flames make, that's fine, it's your world.

[DazzlinDino]

Originally Posted by DeluxeMoustache

I tried to point out earlier in the thread that Lucic’s decline was correlated with deployment
Year 1 - ~50 points
Year 2 - 1st half - 27 points w/ Nuge, still on a >50 point pace
Year 2 - 2nd half - 7 pts w/ more time with assorted linemates like end of career Cammalleri, Khaira, etc.
Year 3 - most frequent line mates were Brodziak and Kassian - 20 pts. The Flames don’t even have players to offer to create a line that bad right now.

Comparatively, Neal got 41 and 44 points the two years prior. Not worse than Lucic, and with better linemates.

James Neal in Calgary - just a ridiculous lack of effort. The excuse about long off season, conditioning, etc. stopped being relevant 10-20 games in. Gifting him ice time should have rubbed some teammates the wrong way. I think it led to the situation with Frolik’s agent, and we know Backlund and Frolik have been close. His other teammates aren’t stupid. It’s insulting to pull down that paycheque and just not give a crap.

I am absolutely sure this is addition by subtraction because I watched his awful play. I can’t see how he endeared himself to his teammates any more than to the fans.

If we compare Lucic next year to anything, it should be what James Neal contributed as a Flame last year. Year over year, what does it do for the Flames? Not what Neal does for Edmonton next year.

For Lucic to bring more than Neal did last year, (and at 500 K less cap hit) is a low, low bar.

It’s weird. I used to like Lucic when he was helping beat Vancouver and then playing with iggy. Then he went to Edmonton and I really disliked him. All of a sudden I like him again.

Yup good points; Not to mention Neal's lack of effort probably pissed a few guys who worked hard all season to get to the playoffs. Neal's nose out of joint likely had other implications, distractions. Flames should have sat Neal at the first sign of trouble and kept him there until he decided to get with the program. Really disappointed with how much room Brouwer and Neal were given, probably because the coaches wanted to justify BT's acquisitions.

[MisterJoji]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

Acquired as a bottom six forward that is tough and intimidating to play in a game that is progressively becoming more and more about speed, skill, vision, playmaking, strength and strategic defending.



It already has failed.We’re locked into 4 years of Lucic. There’s no escaping this deal if Lucic continues to slide to the point of being unplayable. Which is what we’ve been mocking the Oilers about for 3 years.



Now we’re paying a position locked bottom six 5.25 million.



At no point in time has anyone wanted Treliving to go out and give a bottom six player $5.25 x 4 so why go out and acquire one just because James Neal has put egg on your face.

I’m sorry but these kind of statements when Lucic has yet to even put on a practice jersey for the team is incredibly obnoxious. He may not be any better than last year, but he might also improve. There is absolutely zero way of knowing when we’re still 60 days away from training camp. Lots of people hated the Peters signing and Lindholm trade when they happened.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by CanadaMatt

Well you inferred earlier that a poster wanted the Lucic-Neal trade to fail, and therefore (by logical extension) the team to fail, so I am not really too concerned about your reaction to my inference

And, for the record, if this is your version of "didn't love the Brouwer signing", then I think my inference is justified.



The way I see it, is that you're going to put a positive spin onto every move the flames make, that's fine, it's your world.

Yeah thought he was overpaid. Said in other occasions that the term was a year long.

You asked for an example, and the one you found had me thinking the money was too much.

I said I leaned to the positive in the article I wrote today, so never trying to hide the fact that I'm a positive person.