Confirmed with Link: James "Stealth Tumor" Neal traded for Jesus Hornqvist, Nick Spaling - Part 2

[Waffle Fries]

http://www.hockeysverige.se/2014/06/29/hornqvists-chockartade-uppvaknande-ett-trejdsamtal/

Use google or something to translate it.

Thanks. Google Translate isn't the best, so some of it doesn't make perfect sense, but I get the idea of what he's saying. Here are a few translated quotes:

After Hornqvist recovered from the worst of the shock he realized quite quickly that it is also a great opportunity to come to a team like Pittsburgh, a team that annually enter to win the Stanley Cup.
- The first thought when I heard it was Pittsburgh I become traded to was that it is a good team with a new GM, a new coach and the two best players in the world.
- It's obviously a hell of an opportunity to be a top team that also might have a better and stronger organization than Nashville.

Pittsburgh fans teaches certainly have Neal as some sort of yardstick when assessing your effort. How do you feel about that?
- It's clear that it's really difficult to assume his role. I'm not near him when it comes to producing goals and points offensively. While hockey is all about helping your team to win games and then you have your stake over the course assessed.
- I will never produce as Neal, but hopefully I can join in and help take the team further. Hockey is still a team game and it's 19 other guys who also is on the track. It will never be about any individual contest between me and another player.

Hornqvist coming from a season in which he played a personal scoring record with 22 goals and 31 assists in 76 games. When he was in the Penguins likely will play at either Crosby or Malkin's side, he has every chance to improve it further notes coming winter.
- Of course it is a huge opportunity for me. Any forward of that caliber, I did not play in Nashville, although there were good players there too.
- You can compare it with the situation we had with Roman Josi and Shea Weber in Nashville. I do not think Josi been as successful as of now if he had not been allowed to play with Weber. You can really see the lift he got the opportunity and I hope I can end up in a similar seat.
- Malkin and Crosby can do stuff that no one in Nashville can and I look forward to the chance to play with them. Meanwhile, it is also up to me to prove that I should have a place in one of the two top chains.

 

[IHWR]

Are there seriously people that have never seen Hornqvist play? Or is that just being tossed around to dismiss arguments?

At least the "can we really call James Neal a 40 goal scorer" idiocy has subsided.

 

[JTG]

Actually, a life long Stars fan and a guy that wrote for one of their blogs, is a good friend of mine and he told me one of the reasons Neal was expendable in Dallas was because he would rarely use his size, he wouldn't play the boards well enough to keep a cycle going, wasn't all that keen on going in the high traffic areas to work for his goals, he was blessed with an amazing shot and it worked out for him because he also knew where to be on the ice, but when you expected more out of him, you were always left wanting more and disappointed. Neal has decent hockey IQ for getting in the scoring areas and a quick release + a lethal shot, but everything else, he gave you just enough to get by, never enough to say ok well damn, this guy can be one of our best.

That soft perimeter stuff, was always a Neal trade mark. Besides cheap shots, he had a few moments where Neal was that power forward type of player, but flashes of it, never consistent stretches of it. I mean he's famous for what, messing up Brassard's shoulder that one time? Now the stupid incidents with Marchand, etc and being Geno's gunner.

Not even remotely sure you even saw that Neal play in Dallas. I'm going to trust a guy that had blood ties to a Stars legend and writes for them as well as being a life long fan than a casual watcher of him from his Dallas years, no offense.

I don't know how much of the character stuff is true though, but he wasn't the most well liked guy in Dallas, or hated, never really heard anything bad about him besides the coaching staff challenging him to play a more complete game and use his size and he didn't, but the kid they gave the same challenge to, did...that kid, Jamie Benn.

They're the same height, but one is a completely different player than the other, Benn is a guy that Neal could have been if he gave enough of a **** to play harder.

That's fine, it doesn't hurt my feelings. An opinion is an opinion, and I surely wouldn't trust most of the opinions of our fan base here about players on this team. Dallas fans were always a little butt hurt because Neal wasn't that net front presence guy, and didn't make his living from the slot in. Yes, Neal in Dallas was highly inconsistent when it came to using his frame. He did do it though. He would take pucks to the net. He would work down low and along the boards. He just wasn't consistent, and for a period of time here, Neal was consistent doing those things, it just didn't last with any sort of consistency.

This past season, Neal was carrying a line for a period of time. It was something I've never seen him do. He was engaged defensively. I thought it was the best hockey he had ever played. But just like in Dallas, he does things like that and they never seem to stick around.

I think people are underselling Spaling. He is going to be a good player here. I was still hoping for more value in a Neal trade, but I like the pieces we got back. This is unrealistic, but they key to the deal for me would be if we could move out Duper and use that money for another top 6 winger. So the deal would have been Neal for Hornqvist, Spaling, and 2.5mil in cap space. I don't see JR moving Duper, but that's what I would do if possible.

Completely agree. I have never really seen the guy aside from a game or two, but I think the stats he has put up on a mediocre offensive team are decent.

And with Shero gone, Dupuis' fate has completely changed, probably more so than any other player aside from Craig Adams.

Pretty much. Somehow Hornqvist is going to magically become a 70 pt scorer based off no empirical evidence, and Neal is just a bum who probably would have finished off an 82 game season with "only" 29 goals.

You know when I heard arguments like this? Before James Neal started playing with Geno. You had two factions...one saying that he could potentially explode, another saying the exact same thing you are right now. "A guy doesn't just magically go from being a 25 goal scorer to a 40 goal scorer."

When you give him the best center he has ever played with by a very large margin...crazy things can happen. I definitely think Hornqvist breaks 30 goals this season if he stays healthy.

 

[nhindian]

Are there seriously people that have never seen Hornqvist play? Or is that just being tossed around to dismiss arguments?

At least the "can we really call James Neal a 40 goal scorer" idiocy has subsided.

...yes? At least not enough to really know his style of play. Not sure why that would be very surprising.

The Preds get ~0% national coverage and are a lowly offensive team. Outside of the games against the Pens, I wouldn't be surprised if people don't think "gee, I want to watch hockey tonight, let me turn on the Preds."

 

[mpp9]

Judging by the intitial reaction of this board to the trade, yeah I'd say its fair many never saw the guy play. Or knew what his game was all about. And certainly not putting enough emphasis on how important what he brings is to playoff hockey.

Glorified Dupuis. 3rd liner. No skill. That was being thrown around here. And you have no clue what you're talking about if you attribute those things to PH.

 

[DearDiary]

In the Preds conference, Neal says he will be a leader on the team...

 

[SaintLouHaintBlue]

In the Preds conference, Neal says he will be a leader on the team...

He's talking about goals...

Goal...Leader..
Right?

 

[Clardz]

Dallas fan & native here; watched Neal since his start. For a long time Neal was my favorite player in the league. I loved watching him play, and I still agree with people who’ve said his shot is among the top 5 in the world. In his early days in Dallas, Neal did a lot of different things on the ice. Forechecked hard, delivered big hits, I think he was among the league leaders in rookies for takeaways as well. After his first suspension for boarding Dorsett, his physical game began to atrophy. You could tell things were in his head more and he was suddenly hesitant. This, combined with the streakiness of his scoring (I tried to deny it for years but he definitely relies on having a world class center) were what seemed to me to be the reason he initially got traded to Pittsburgh.

I always tried to ignore the things I heard about him; Dallas is a big city but very small in a lot of ways. And you have to take what you hear second hand for it what it is. The word that kept coming up about him was arrogance. Even just the example of him having Easton put “Real Deal†on the cuff of his gloves; I didn’t get what the big deal was and thought it was just him being stoked on the nickname fans had bestowed upon him. But that was pointed to as being a good example of what the problems behind closed doors were.

I couldn’t find it in a quick search but somewhere there is a video on the Stars website where Ott is asked who the most arrogant rookie he’d ever seen was and his answer was Neal; going so far as to describe the guys cutting his neckties and other pranks they’d pull on him to try to help keep his head in the right place (the video is out there somewhere, so the people looking for someone in an organization to actually say it publicly…) This was mind-blowing to me in particular because I’d met James in person a handful of times and he was always very nice, to the point of giving me one of his game-used sticks the first time I met him. And when you see things like his Episode of NHL 36, you wonder “how can all these rumors be true?†He comes off as a lighthearted, amenable guy. But the rumors persist, and through all of this, while he put up some serious numbers as a goal scorer, you also see him doing bonehead things on the ice. Boarding, kneeing general headhunting. The guy that in his OHL days was named one of the best hitters in the league wasn’t using that for separating the opponent from the puck anymore, he would; as many here have said, float around for the most part waiting to rip a shot. When the opportunities weren’t coming or weren’t going his way, he was playing recklessly and putting his team in a bad spot. He seems to be a very dualistic guy in that he knows how to come across as a likable guy, I imagine he is probably still kind to fans; but there’s a side of him (off-ice) that the general public doesn’t see

To the point about Neal and winning, at one time he seemed like a winning guy. His career has had a very interesting trajectory. He won gold the World Jr’s on a Jonathan Toews led Team Canada (in a checking line role), and he helped lead the Plymouth Whalers all the way to the Memorial Cup. He had raised his point totals in the OHL playoffs (and he was not considered a sniper in Jr) there was talk of him having leadership qualities and potential captain material down the line. I still don’t know where things went wrong for him, at the time of the Dallas trade I felt the way many Penguins fans are feeling right now. I had all the same questions and frustration and didn’t want to accept the “attitude/personality problems†that I heard, but overtime of observation combined with the fact that the same things are being said now that were 4 years ago I started to accept that they had to have a solid foundation in reality.

I think the move to Nashville can be good for James, they will be playing a stronger offensive game than in years past and hopefully the organization is far from the “clubhouse†styles that Dallas (at that time) and Pittsburgh have been dogged as having. I’m not sure what kind of veterans are hanging around Nashville besides Weber but I think Neal’s Pittsburgh days could have been better if a Bill Guerin type had been in the room as well.

Sorry for such a long post. Again it’s all just hearsay for most of us, and of course you can believe what you want. I’m just chiming in as someone that’s followed his career for a long time and someone who understands both sides of the story.

 

[M10]

The Pittsburgh media created most of the hype regarding his personality or lack there of. Neal came up in Toronto and I'm sure he possesses a little arrogance, you can tell. Pittsburgh people want their athletes to be "aw shucks". That's not James Neal.

I don't believe for a second that James Neal is any different, in terms of how he presents himself, than most other people who are millionaire athletes in their 20's.

He apparently wasn't nice to some media so they did what they do. The trade itself was terrible as it stands but Rutherford deserves a chance. We'll see what the roster looks like in September.

 

[hiptanaka]

Dallas fan & native here; watched Neal since his start. For a long time Neal was my favorite player in the league. I loved watching him play, and I still agree with people who’ve said his shot is among the top 5 in the world. In his early days in Dallas, Neal did a lot of different things on the ice. Forechecked hard, delivered big hits, I think he was among the league leaders in rookies for takeaways as well. After his first suspension for boarding Dorsett, his physical game began to atrophy. You could tell things were in his head more and he was suddenly hesitant. This, combined with the streakiness of his scoring (I tried to deny it for years but he definitely relies on having a world class center) were what seemed to me to be the reason he initially got traded to Pittsburgh.

I always tried to ignore the things I heard about him; Dallas is a big city but very small in a lot of ways. And you have to take what you hear second hand for it what it is. The word that kept coming up about him was arrogance. Even just the example of him having Easton put “Real Deal†on the cuff of his gloves; I didn’t get what the big deal was and thought it was just him being stoked on the nickname fans had bestowed upon him. But that was pointed to as being a good example of what the problems behind closed doors were.

I couldn’t find it in a quick search but somewhere there is a video on the Stars website where Ott is asked who the most arrogant rookie he’d ever seen was and his answer was Neal; going so far as to describe the guys cutting his neckties and other pranks they’d pull on him to try to help keep his head in the right place (the video is out there somewhere, so the people looking for someone in an organization to actually say it publicly…) This was mind-blowing to me in particular because I’d met James in person a handful of times and he was always very nice, to the point of giving me one of his game-used sticks the first time I met him. And when you see things like his Episode of NHL 36, you wonder “how can all these rumors be true?†He comes off as a lighthearted, amenable guy. But the rumors persist, and through all of this, while he put up some serious numbers as a goal scorer, you also see him doing bonehead things on the ice. Boarding, kneeing general headhunting. The guy that in his OHL days was named one of the best hitters in the league wasn’t using that for separating the opponent from the puck anymore, he would; as many here have said, float around for the most part waiting to rip a shot. When the opportunities weren’t coming or weren’t going his way, he was playing recklessly and putting his team in a bad spot. He seems to be a very dualistic guy in that he knows how to come across as a likable guy, I imagine he is probably still kind to fans; but there’s a side of him (off-ice) that the general public doesn’t see

To the point about Neal and winning, at one time he seemed like a winning guy. His career has had a very interesting trajectory. He won gold the World Jr’s on a Jonathan Toews led Team Canada (in a checking line role), and he helped lead the Plymouth Whalers all the way to the Memorial Cup. He had raised his point totals in the OHL playoffs (and he was not considered a sniper in Jr) there was talk of him having leadership qualities and potential captain material down the line. I still don’t know where things went wrong for him, at the time of the Dallas trade I felt the way many Penguins fans are feeling right now. I had all the same questions and frustration and didn’t want to accept the “attitude/personality problems†that I heard, but overtime of observation combined with the fact that the same things are being said now that were 4 years ago I started to accept that they had to have a solid foundation in reality.

I think the move to Nashville can be good for James, they will be playing a stronger offensive game than in years past and hopefully the organization is far from the “clubhouse†styles that Dallas (at that time) and Pittsburgh have been dogged as having. I’m not sure what kind of veterans are hanging around Nashville besides Weber but I think Neal’s Pittsburgh days could have been better if a Bill Guerin type had been in the room as well.

Sorry for such a long post. Again it’s all just hearsay for most of us, and of course you can believe what you want. I’m just chiming in as someone that’s followed his career for a long time and someone who understands both sides of the story.

Appreciate the insight. It's interesting to point out that, in both of the times that Neal was traded, the trades were considered somewhat lopsided in favor of the team receiving Neal. Either Rutherford and Nieuwendyk are both incompetent, or there's more to it than the pure stats suggest, as your post (and others) have insinuated.

That being said, I'm still not happy with the trade. Neal was one of my favorite players.

 

[cygnus47]

Neal could definitely be a very effective all-round player. He only has two big weaknesses: lumbering skating stride and lack of one-on-one skills. I think really, his main weakness is his stiff stride which makes him easy to defend in open ice. He is an underrated playmaker, has one of the best wrist shots in the world, is a big guy and he can forecheck and play around the net when he's in the mood. Once the team is in the offensive zone, he is every bit a PPG player.

His inability to create on his own is due to his skating and one-on-one skills, not a lack of hockey IQ, strength or puck skills. He needs an elite centre because he's easy to take the puck from one-on-one in open ice and at the blue line, so he struggles to create from the neutral zone on his own. That's why he goes invisible when he doesn't have a good centre, he struggles to gain the offensive zone. He's good at possessing the puck in the offensive zone, but not through the neutral zone. If he were more agile, we'd be talking about a 90+ point player and one of the best wingers in the game.

He is probably suited more for a dump and chase, cycle type of game, because it means he doesn't have to carry the puck across the blue line. He's not going to score anywhere near as much off the rush in Nashville because he won't have Geno possessing the puck like a maniac. I wouldn't be surprised if he still gets 30G-35A+, but I wonder how Laviolette is going to use him. If he expects Neal to be a primary puck carrier through the neutral zone, it's not going to work out well.

 

[IHWR]

...yes? At least not enough to really know his style of play. Not sure why that would be very surprising.

The Preds get ~0% national coverage and are a lowly offensive team. Outside of the games against the Pens, I wouldn't be surprised if people don't think "gee, I want to watch hockey tonight, let me turn on the Preds."

Well he's played in close to 400 NHL games and he's played in the WJC, WC and an Olympics. So it's not like you really need to search him out.

And that's fine of you haven't seen him...that wasn't the point of my post. I was just addressing the "you obviously haven't seen him play" dismissal to someone's thoughts on a player (especially when it comes to projecting how successful he'll be in the Pens lineup).

Like I don't think Hornqvist will ever come close to replacing Neal's offensive numbers but he does do some good things that Neal doesn't also. To me the difference is just way more than Nick Spaling.

I keep thinking back to the Seguin trade and while I don't think Neal should net the same group of players in return, I just watched how Loui Eriksson (the key player in that deal) kinda struggled to find his place in the Bruins lineup but it was the emergence of Reilly Smith that has somewhat made that trade more balanced...throw in a Joe Morrow and that doesn't suck either.

My point is that the Bruins dealt a youngish player who they felt had some attitude issues but they still managed to get decent value for him and it was the additional pieces in that trade that has made losing Seguin's offence tolerable.

We just should've gotten a third piece or a way better second piece. If Hornqvist doesn't fit right in, then we've lost the most effective offensive winger this team has had since Kovalev and Jagr in the early 2000s.

 

[Captain Hook]

I also appreciate the insight, Clardz.

I love Neal and wish him well in Nashville. It hurts to lose him but our team needed some different types of players on the ice and in the locker room. Hopefully Hornqvist and Spaling are the right type of guys.

 

[mpp9]

Well he's played in close to 400 NHL games and he's played in the WJC, WC and an Olympics. So it's not like you really need to search him out.

And that's fine of you haven't seen him...that wasn't the point of my post. I was just addressing the "you obviously haven't seen him play" dismissal to someone's thoughts on a player (especially when it comes to projecting how successful he'll be in the Pens lineup).

Like I don't think Hornqvist will ever come close to replacing Neal's offensive numbers but he does do some good things that Neal doesn't also. To me the difference is just way more than Nick Spaling.

I keep thinking back to the Seguin trade and while I don't think Neal should net the same group of players in return, I just watched how Loui Eriksson (the key player in that deal) kinda struggled to find his place in the Bruins lineup but it was the emergence of Reilly Smith that has somewhat made that trade more balanced...throw in a Joe Morrow and that doesn't suck either.

My point is that the Bruins dealt a youngish player who they felt had some attitude issues but they still managed to get decent value for him and it was the additional pieces in that trade that has made losing Seguin's offence tolerable.

We just should've gotten a third piece or a way better second piece. If Hornqvist doesn't fit right in, then we've lost the most effective offensive winger this team has had since Kovalev and Jagr in the early 2000s.

Luckily we haven't had a netfront presence like him since Malone. He'll have a niche to fill. He'll produce just fine.

 

[Pancakes]

I live in Tennessee and therefore see a fair amount of Predators games. Hornqvist is a gritty two-way forward who loves to go to the front of the net and scores a ton of goals there. I can't count the amount of times I've seen him score goals from right on the door step in front of the net. He has very good hands and awareness around the cage. He loves to shoot and routinely racks up very high shot totals.

Spaling is a big and lanky guy who isn't the most graceful skater, but like Hornqvist he's a smart player who has a knack for being in the right place at the right time. He's got good hands for deflection goals and his reach can be dangerous on the pk.

I think we'll like both of these players. They're gritty and intelligent and they excel at north/south hockey.

 

[IHWR]

Luckily we haven't had a netfront presence like him since Malone. He'll have a niche to fill. He'll produce just fine.

I agree that he'll be an asset in front of the net (especially on the powerplay) but it's Neal's points that I think we'll struggle to replace initially.

You can hate the guy because he's a d-bag or because he's inconsistent or because he's lazy but you can't deny that he had chemistry with Malkin and he produced. So while we shed the bad stuff about James Neal from the team, I also remember the years of bringing in guys like Miroslav Satan or Fedetenko or Guerin or Ponikarovsky trying to find second tier offensive wingers who could keep up and play with out centres and I don't want to go back to that.

 

[Pancakes]

I agree that he'll be an asset in front of the net (especially on the powerplay) but it's Neal's points that I think we'll struggle to replace initially.

You can hate the guy because he's a d-bag or because he's inconsistent or because he's lazy but you can't deny that he had chemistry with Malkin and he produced. So while we shed the bad stuff about James Neal from the team, I also remember the years of bringing in guys like Miroslav Satan or Fedetenko or Guerin or Ponikarovsky trying to find second tier offensive wingers who could keep up and play with out centres and I don't want to go back to that.

I don't think it will be that difficult to replace Neal's production. A healthy Hornqvist I'd expect to score between 60-70 points for our lineup. At the very worst he'd likely score 50-60.

A healthy Neal for us would probably be PPG, so we're talking a difference of maybe 10ish points between Neal and Horqnvist. And perhaps we make up that difference too if the free agents we sign (Kulemin for example) allow Malkin and Sid to flourish more than they have recently.

 

[IHWR]

I don't think it will be that difficult to replace Neal's production. A healthy Hornqvist I'd expect to score between 60-70 points for our lineup. At the very worst he'd likely score 50-60.

A healthy Neal for us would probably be PPG, so we're talking a difference of maybe 10ish points between Neal and Horqnvist. And perhaps we make up that difference too if the free agents we sign (Kulemin for example) allow Malkin and Sid to flourish more than they have recently.

I don't think Hornqvist touches 70 points this season. I'd say he'll be closer to 50-55 and then with luck that goes up as he gets more comfortable and builds the chemistry with the centres.

As for Kulemin, that guy makes me nervous and it should be concerning that we're bringing in a guy who had 20 points last year because he had some chemistry with Malkin close to a decade ago. He'll be in the KHL within 2 years once a few more NHL teams realize he's not that good.

Let's bring Matt Moulson back instead...or kick the tires on a short-term deal with a guy like Hemsky.

 

[ColePens]

Someone get another thread up