Oh, I remember
so distinctly Neal's profile on the Penguins' "In the Room" show when they showed his teammates (Dupuis especially) making such a federal case as to how badly he was obsessed with his hair. Supposedly, Neal never (or at least seldom) washed his hair because he thought shampooing washed out the oil and therefore contributed to baldness. Apparently, that was/is a fate worse than death in his mind.
Anyway, Neal (IMO) never did much in his Pittsburgh days to dissuade the notion he was an asshole. And then came the coup de gras which jump-started his exit from Pittsburgh when he kneed Brad Marchand in the head (in that infamous Thornton vs Orpik game against the Bruins) and turned Ratface into a friggin' sympathetic figure. To this day, I'd swear to Gawd that simply wasn't possible.
Anyway, it's reasonably clear that trading for Neal
has been a good deal for Nashville (though something tells me he might have been
the most pissed-off guy in Nashville after the Subban trade). Happily, Horndog's role in the Cup win certainly has evened up the deal to a pretty significant extent. I don't think either team misses the guy they dealt.
Meanwhile, I was looking at the postgame stats (had to listen to the game on XM because there was no telecast in my Charleston hotel tonight). That Jason Mackey piece talked about the Pens' well-chronicled problems with faceoffs; and coming on its heels, here were the Pens faceoff stats versus Nashville:
- Bonino -- 6 wins, 10 losses
- Sid -- 14 wins, 18 losses
- Fehr -- 1 win, 7 losses
- Rowney -- 3 wins, 7 losses
What makes these stats so much more difficult to reconcile is they don't include the Pens worst faceoff guy (Geno).