Joined: May 2019
Posts: 408
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If Treliving accepted that trade he'd be packing up his office. Have to love that you immediately place Neal into your top six, and get back a first rounder plus another mid round pick for Backes who is pretty much a $6M fourth liner at this point and has trended down for the past few years. I think they keep Neal another season to see if he can't return to his previous 20G, 40P form as hopefully last year was a blip and not a cliff-like decline curve.
If this was being explored, a Neal for Backes swap likely includes 50% salary retention for Backes and maybe 25% retention for Neal.
Bruins get Neal at an equivalent cap hit (Backes retention + Neal's cost) of 7.3125M, 7.3125M, 4.3125M, 4.3125M. They add 1.3125M to their cap in the first two years vs. keeping Backes, and get Neal for a decent price if he's a 40P guy again in years three and four. They take on the longer term risk but the player is more likely to bounce back. I actually think he would be a good fit on the Bruins with Krecji as they are more of a cycle team than the Flames. Flames maybe entice with a mid round pick, but definitely not a first in this scenario.
Flames get Backes at 4.4375M, 4.4375M followed by dead space of 1.4375M, 1.4375M. They save 1.3125M for two years and have a worse player in their lineup, but pay less than the buyout cap hit would be in years three and four assuming Neal is actually terrible. Again, I don't think they do it as I'm sure they expect Neal to be better than last season, but if not this could be a palatable solution as Backes is at least a big RHS (which Calgary lacks in their roster and prospect system).