On this date in 2019, the winner of this trade is clear

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Joshua Deeds
July 21, 2023 (10:18)

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It's been a while since the Calgary Flames dealt James Neal to the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for Milan Lucic and a conditional pick in the 3rd round.

The Oilers would end up retaining $750K of Milan Lucic's salary as they would be moving the aging winger, who is nowhere near the same Lucic who won a cup with Boston back in 2011.

Which team won the 2019 Neal-Lucic trade? Breakdown both players after the deal with
@A_Aksenchuk8

After failing to find his spark playing with Matthew Tkachuk of all people in Calgary's system, Neal found himself in Edmonton after failing to find his spark.

Despite his ankle injury, he was able to recover in a short amount of time and revive his career with short-term success. He scored 19 goals and 31 points while maintaining a 17% shooting percentage while remaining competitive. There was a difficult time for Neal during the latter part of the season due to the post-viral symptoms from his covid infection, and he only scored 10 points for 29 games in that season. It was not long after that he would be put on waivers to buy out his contract.

As a result, the Oilers would buy out the remainder of the contract at $5.75 Million, allowing him to play in the American Hockey League and eventually in the NHL before being waived again by the Columbus Blue Jackets.

As a result of the terms of the trade, the Flames were able to get the draft pick back which they ended up using to purchase a 3rd round and a 6th round pick in the 2021 draft, who would later become Kirill Kirsanov( Los Angeles Kings draft pick) now playing in the KHL with Vityaz. As a result, Cameron Whynot and Jack Beck would end up being the Flames' picks.

As compared to James Neal, it seems clear that Lucic was much more capable during his time in Calgary than in Edmonton and that he lived up to his expectations to a greater extent in Calgary than in Edmonton.