At trade deadline:
-Calgary gives up nothing
-Neal starts scoring
Who says no??
Am I the only one that sees improvement in Neal lately. I mean, yes it is a slow burn, but I can see glimpses of what we thought we'd get.
Am I the only one that sees improvement in Neal lately. I mean, yes it is a slow burn, but I can see glimpses of what we thought we'd get.
Yes, I can see improvement. What I can't see are f***ing goals.Am I the only one that sees improvement in Neal lately. I mean, yes it is a slow burn, but I can see glimpses of what we thought we'd get.
How did Neal play last night? Saw the assist, but curious to hear what others think.
Garnet Hathaway has more goals than James Neal this year.
We should pay Garnet Hathaway 5.75M per year instead.
I'm not sure I would categorize his game as perimeter only. He goes to the corners and plays the half wall well. He does like to locate himself in the high slot verses a net front presence, a territory Bennett and Jankowski go to.I thought the real deal would get one last night the way Arizona was letting guys walk in on net every time, but his game is perimeter only.
Some of Neal's issues definitely lie in bad luck, but he's also been playing anywhere between mediocre and bad every game this year. Not one game did I see him and think "boy, now there's a guy who's really driving play" or "at this rate he'll start scoring any minute!" Value for dollar he's honestly not a lot better than Brouwer was.So watching Hoffman the other night made me wish we had picked him up instead of Neal. Hoffman is having a great season so I looked at his shooting %. He's shooting at 14.9%, over his career average of 11.3. Neal is having a rotten season and has a shooting % of 4.1 well below his career average of 11.7.
Seems to me Neal needs to get selfish and shoot the puck at every opportunity. They'll start going in and his line mates will quickly realize to set him up every chance they get.
We didn't pay him to drive play. We paid him to be invisible for long stretches in a game and then pop up and make one play to win us the game. That's what his MO was with Nashville and Vegas. Granted, he's not reaching that so far this season, but the difference between what he is now and that is a lot less than you might think.Some of Neal's issues definitely lie in bad luck, but he's also been playing anywhere between mediocre and bad every game this year. Not one game did I see him and think "boy, now there's a guy who's really driving play" or "at this rate he'll start scoring any minute!" Value for dollar he's honestly not a lot better than Brouwer was.