At least Calgary will get a 3rd out of the Lucic trade. Because Neal is scoring 20 goals.

The crazy thing is.... he didn’t fit with the Flames. He’s too similar to Monahan and that line would have been a defensive liability with 2 weak skaters. The Backlund line is a shutdown line, not what neal is known for. Factor that in and you end up exactly where he played... bottom 6, also had issues with Peters. It was a shortsighted signing by Treliving

You're just hurting yourself trying to go back in time and change things. At least you didn't trade anything to get Neal in the first place. He was just a UFA signing. So hey! Just think of it as a 5+million dollar checking forward for the next 4 years for FREE! YAAAAY!

Neal would not be scoring in CGY he had no synergy with anyone on the Flames top 6 roster and is not a viable bottom 6 player since he is defensively challenged. Lucic is not know for being a goal scorer and we don't need him to be, we were 2nd in the league last year for goals and Neal only had 7. Meanwhile Looch has come out every game so far and made an impact physically. The hindsight was never with the trade it was always with the signing in the first place.

Neal has looked great so far, but there was about a month of 0.5 PPG play out of Neal last year where we felt like he was turning it around. If he's still scoring by US Thanksgiving then we can look back on the deal as a disaster. I was worried about Neal bouncing back when the trade was announced, but as other posters have mentioned it wouldn't have happened here due to him being a poor fit in our top 6 and the player not having any drive whatsoever when he was playing on the third line. Lucic has brought some of the snarl the Flames were missing at least and the room seems to like him. When Neal's not scoring he looks like a beer leaguer floating around out there. Perhaps over the course of a long season the swap looks better from a Calgary perspective.