Quote:
Originally Posted by FanIn80
Some of those comments seem to be missing some key points:
- We finished 2nd overall in points with Neal doing nothing
- We finished 2nd overall in goals scored with Neal doing nothing
- Neal provided no offence with no intangibles
- Lucic could also provide no offence, but has physical intangibles
- Nobody was taking on Neal's contract without another bad contract coming back
- Edmonton went from paying $6M for 4 more years of Lucic to paying $6.5M for 4 more years of Neal
- Calgary went from paying $5.75M for 4 more years of Neal to paying $5.25M for 4 more years of Lucic
- Edmonton was paying $6M, and is now paying $6.5M
- Calgary was paying $5.75M, and is now paying $5.25M
- Edmonton is spending $0.5M more for a 31 year-old that does nothing if he's not scoring
- Calgary is spending $0.5M less for a 31 year-old that hits and scares the sh*t out of people even if he's not scoring
- Edmonton sucks
- Calgary does not suck
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Hmm, I guess the readability of my post wasn't that great or the quotes aren't conveying what I thought they would. In any case articles/analysts generally address at least some if not all of those parts.
The general feeling I got from reading maybe a dozen or so articles etc. was that mostly analysts don't hate the deal for Calgary, even if they think Edmonton is likely going to win the trade. (Obviously there's a whole spread of differing opinions.)
Almost nobody thinks it's going to have a big effect on either team, several are pointing out Calgary did fine without James Neal doing anything worth mentioning, and I'm pretty sure literally no one puts the words "Oilers" and "playoffs" even in the same paragraph
Which is as close as these people will come to saying "Edmonton still sucks though".
In fact I was quite surprised to notice that despite people generally feeling Neal has the better chance of bouncing back, it all felt very muted and unenthusiastic. I was expecting to see people saying things like "potential of a huge comeback" and analysts reminding how Neal was in the cup finals for two years in a row etc. There really wasn't much of that.
