Nobody’s won the Neal/Lucic swap (yet)

On Tuesday night, Edmonton Oilers winger James Neal scored a zillion goals. If you’re on social media and know anybody that has ever had anything to do with the hockey club three hours north of Calgary, you probably heard about it.

But since we’re only a week into the 2019-20 season, it’s worth mentioning: the @Calgary Flames haven’t won or lost the Neal for @Milan Lucic swap. (Yet.)

Before the Flames scored in the second period of Tuesday’s game, Neal had as many goals as they did. But let’s think about it this way…

Last season, Neal had seven goals on 141 shots and a 5.0% shooting percentage. In his entire career, he has an 11.8% shooting percentage. While Neal ain’t likely to regress to how far below his career mean he was last season, he’s not going to shoot at 43% all season. He’s going to go cold at some point.

For whatever reason, the Flames were motivated enough to get rid of Neal that they accepted a trade for Milan Lucic – a player with less offensive upside and a contract that’s long and basically impossible to buy out because of the bonus structure.

In this sense, here’s how the trade breaks down:

The Flames get a conditional third round pick from the Oilers if Neal scores 21 (or more) goals and scores 10 (or more) goals than Lucic. So far, Neal’s off to a great start. If he averages three shots over his remaining 79 games, he just needs to shoot 6.3% over the remainder of the season to hit the 21 goal mark – and bear in mind, his career average is closer to twice that percentage.

Based on Neal’s hot start (and Lucic’s start), it’s looking probable that the Flames will get that pick.

Neal’s scoring all of the goals for the Oilers right now. That’s good for the Oilers.

From the Flames’ perspective, they were coming off crushing playoff disappointment that frittered away their best regular season in a generation. They had tried to work around Neal during the season, as he never really fit in the spot they tried to carve out for him on the third line. He was a healthy scratch in the playoffs and a potential distraction during the upcoming season.

The trade to Edmonton removed a distraction, gave the Flames a physical presence (that they felt they lost when Garnet Hathaway went to Washington), much-needed cap relief and potentially a draft pick to help them restock their farm system.

It was not a perfect trade. It was a lateral move on the ice, at best. But if Neal scores a zillion goals and the Flames get the conditional pick, it’s a trade that will provide the Flames with fairly significant short term (cap relief) and longer term (the pick) value.