At league minimum, this is an absolutely fantastic move. With Brown and Mac both clearing waivers, this signing cost us almost nothing. It didn't cost us a player, it is a small cap savings over whoever's roster spot he took and Brown is on a 2 way deal. The only real 'cost' here is that we have to pay MacMac an NHL salary in the AHL, so the owners have to eat $750k of real dollars to pay for the extra player who is now in the system.
In exchange for that incredibly small cost, we get a guy who has 20+ goal pace potential and 10+ goal pace floor. Despite a couple down seasons in the last 3 years, I think it is worth noting that he hasn't gotten caved in defensively. He's not going to succeed as a 4th line grinder, but even at his worst he hasn't been a massive defensive liability on an offensive minded 2nd/3rd line. He needs to produce in order to be worth the roster spot in that role and whether he can do so is still very much a question mark. But he isn't the black hole that Hoffman is when pucks aren't going in. His game off the puck has still been good enough to give him a 15-20 game run to see if the offense is there. This is a long way to say that he shouldn't cost the many Blues games in the first quarter of the season, which is a decent floor for a league minimum guy with the potential to produce 20 goals from the 3rd line.
Berube seems to want Neal-Thomas-Tarasenko to work. And I think there is a very real avenue to make that line work. With ROR, Buch and Saad all in the "top 6" that should allow us to lean on those 2 lines defensively and then use Neal-Thomas-Tarasenko for a lot of offensive situations. And if that line doesn't work, you can also try to rekindle some Vegas magic with Neal jumping on the wing of the ROR-Perron pairing. Our roster is surprisingly well-suited to hide Neal's deficiencies if he still has some goals left in the tank.
As a bonus, this is a guy who has been to the Final twice, cashed in as a UFA, spent 3 years failing to live up to that contract and then dealing with the ego-hit that is being bought out. If he is in it for his own ego, he has plenty of motivation to shut people up. If he is chasing a Cup, he has seen first hand what it takes to get near the top of the mountain and should be fine accepting whatever role he's asked to play. He's 34. He knows that the gas tank is nearing empty but that is an age where guys often still have enough left in the tank.
He might be waived 6 weeks from now, but I'd bet against it. I think he winds up being good enough to either stick in the healthy top 9 or being a great 13th forward to plug top 9 injuries as they occur.
