Colour this trade ‘red’, as in Flames’ embarrassment and James Neal causing goal lights to flash.
The red faces of Calgary Flames’ management over the Neal-for-Milan Lucic trade are close to matching the colour of the team’s sweaters.
It’s almost as if Edmonton Oilers general manager Ken Holland found some magic beans, climbed the beanstalk and wound up with a big pot of gold coins.
Lucic was sent to Calgary during the summer in exchange for Neal in a swap of two under-performers.
And how has it gone so far? Through two weeks, if you checked the NHL stats under ‘goals’, you’d see Neal was No. 1. He scored seven in Edmonton’s first five games, including a four-goal outing at home against New York Islanders.
Under ‘penalty minutes’, Lucic was No. 1, with 26, in Calgary’s first five games. Lucic also had zero goals and zero assists in that period, but he did have 16 hits to rank among the NHL’s top 20.
The trade made some sense on the day it was made. Neither Neal nor Lucic did much offensively to help their teams last year, and both carried the weight of monster contracts. The feeling was that fresh starts and new scenery were needed for both. Neal had arrived in Calgary as a free agent one year earlier with the reputation of a serious sniper (10 seasons of 20-plus goals, including a 40-goal campaign with Pittsburgh in 2011-12). For a variety of reasons, nothing clicked and he wound up in coach Bill Peters’ doghouse.
The Flames, meanwhile, said Lucic’s hard-nosed, grinding style was something the team was missing and he showed off that side in Game 1 of the new season when he sucker-punched Colorado’s Nikita Zadorov after the Avalanche player crushed Flames 5-foot-9, 160-pound Austin Czarnik into the boards. Peters was also hoping Lucic might rediscover his scoring touch; after all, he has had a 30-goal season and four others of 20-plus goals in his NHL career before potting only 10 and then six in his last two seasons with the Oilers.
If the first two weeks of the season are any indication, this is one of the most one-sided sports trades in history. Babe Ruth from the Red Sox to the Yankees for $400,000 cash is the benchmark in that category. Neal’s on pace for more than 100 goals and Lucic is trying out for Don Cherry’s all-star team by skating around punching people, sporting a red face to match his new red uniform.
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- Omaha’s Brad Dickson: “Bill Callahan is the interim head coach of the Washington Redskins. The nautical version would be if the captain of the Titanic got a second chance.”
- Comedy writer Jim Barach: “Clayton Kershaw threw six pitches for the Dodgers in (their series-ending) loss. The first three for a strikeout, the next three for two home runs. In three pitches he went from the GOAT to the goat.”
- Janice Hough, from leftcoastsportsbabe.com: “Braves are looking so bad Atlanta sports fans are getting PTSD flashbacks to Super Bowl LI.”
- Tweet of the Week, from “Captain Schlasser: Leader of Men,” after the Braves coughed up a record 10 runs in the first inning of the winner-take-all Game 5 vs. the Cardinals: “It’s been 2 years, 8 months and 3 days since Super Bowl LI. The Falcons led 28-3 in Super Bowl LI. It suddenly makes sense.”
- RJ Currie of sportsdeke.com: “A Turkish morgue reportedly installed motion-detecting alarms in case the dead come back to life. In a related story, motion detectors are being installed in the Miami Dolphins dressing room.”
- Alex Kaseberg again: “The Rams' Clay Matthews had to have his jaw wired shut. This is terrible. Why couldn't this have happened to Richard Sherman instead?”
- Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times: “The Bills have signed defensive end Wyatt Ray — the late Nat King Cole’s grandson — to their practice squad. Buffalo fans’ No. 1 wish: Save your greatest hits for Tom Brady.”
- Another one from Janice Hough, after the Texans — who’d averaged 19.5 points in their first four games — put up 53 on the Falcons: ”Their offence went through Atlanta faster than Sherman.”
- Bob Molinaro in the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, on the NFL fining Browns receiver Odell Beckham Jr., among others, $14,037 for unsportsmanlike conduct: “Let’s assume the fines were deserved, but what’s with the $37? Is that some sort of service charge?”
- Greg Cote of The Miami Herald, on the recent NFL matchup between 0-5 Washington and the 0-4 Dolphins: “Picking a team to win (this) game is like choosing whether to wear underwear made of sandpaper or burlap.”
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