SPRINGFIELD — In the fall of 2008, long before he piled up his 296 goals in 869 National Hockey League games, and years before his back-to-back runs to the Stanley Cup Final with Nashville and Vegas, James Neal was a 21-year-old rookie with a Dallas Stars club highlighted by some of the franchise’s biggest legends: Mike Modano, Sergei Zubov, Jere Lehtinen, Brenden Morrow, Brad Richards, Marty Turco.
Yet it was the club’s broadcast team of Ralph Strangis and Daryl “Razor” Reaugh that would be responsible for one of the all-time most recognizable nicknames in the history of sport.
In getting to know the rookie winger prior to his NHL debut, Strangis and Reaugh listened as Neal told the story of his paternal grandfather, a car salesman for General Motors for more than 40 years. James’ grandfather had a most unique nickname on the job – “Square Deal” Neal.
When James became a Dallas shootout hero in Vancouver on Jan. 4, 2009, an innocent remark on the Stars broadcast and a corresponding headline in a newspaper triggered the moniker that has followed the 34-year-old everywhere he has been since: “He’s the real deal!”
“It was a little bit of a joke,” Neal said. “It’s funny the way it kind of just stuck.”
Neal, who was assigned to the Springfield Thunderbirds on Jan. 26, quickly made himself a focal point of the potent Springfield man advantage, scoring two power play goals in a 4-2 win at Hartford on Feb. 11, his first AHL game in over 13 years.
Reflecting back to his younger days, Neal recalls a laundry list of players in the Stars organization that shaped him into a pro both on and off the ice.
“Brad Richards was a huge mentor of mine,” Neal said. “I lived with Brad my first couple of years in Dallas; he took me under his wing. I got to see the work he and the guys put in and how they went about their days as a pro. From Morrow to Turco to (Steve) Ott, to Trevor Daley, every single one of those guys helped me along the way.”
With 296 NHL goals on his resume to go along with two Stanley Cup Final appearances, 10 seasons of 20-or-more goals, and a 40-goal season with Pittsburgh in 2011-12, Neal could have seen his AHL assignment as the writing on the wall pointing to life after hockey.
But the “Real Deal” is not ready to entertain such a conversation yet.
“A lot of guys were probably shocked that I would come down to the AHL,” Neal said. “But I felt like it wasn’t time to throw the towel in. I feel like I can still be an impact player with the way I’ve played in the (Stanley Cup) playoffs. I feel that the Blues are Stanley Cup contenders.”
Neal is undoubtedly a reliable source of such high praise for St. Louis’s Cup aspirations, having seen firsthand the Predators’ and Golden Knights’ charges to the Final. The Predators entered the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs as the lowest seed in the Western Conference. All they did was sweep the three-time champion Chicago Blackhawks in the opening round and steamroll their way to a 12-4 record through three rounds to reach the Stanley Cup Final, where they faced Neal’s old team, the Penguins.
“(In Nashville), we built something really special with a really close group of guys,” Neal said. “I remember tying my skates in Game 6 and watching the TV in the training room and seeing 100,000 people stacked down Broadway, and then the building was already packed for warmups. It was so loud and so much fun to play there.”
Nashville’s magical run could not overcome the second of back-to-back titles for Pittsburgh, who prevailed in six games.
“Leaving Nashville, I remember thinking nothing could ever top (Nashville),” Neal remembers upon being selected by the Golden Knights in the Expansion Draft in 2017.
The 2017-18 Golden Knights season will forever hold a place in the annals of hockey history. Before Vegas ever took to the ice, the entire community was shaken on Oct. 1 of that fall when a mass shooting took the lives of 59 people at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival.
“(The tragedy) brought everyone together and it brought the city together. People in Vegas wanted a pro sports team. Lucky enough, we were the first ones, and to live there and see a different side of the community was really cool.”
With a purpose way beyond hockey as their rallying point, Vegas stormed out of the gates with wins in eight of their first nine games en route to a 51-win season and Pacific Division title.
“We had two wins under our belt (before coming home), and that gave us confidence to know that we could win against different teams, and we continued to get better,” said Neal. “We talked amongst each other, saying things like ‘if we continue to have fun here and keep this up, you never know what could happen.’”
What happened, in turn, was a Cinderella run that saw the expansion franchise dispatch Los Angeles, San Jose, and Winnipeg to earn a date in the Stanley Cup Final against Washington. While the Golden Knights’ historic quest came up a couple wins short, Neal’s fondness of his year in Vegas is palpable.
“I didn’t think a rink could be louder than Nashville, but Vegas was right there with it. It was a special year that I couldn’t have enjoyed more,” he said.
For the man who has played in the Stanley Cup Final twice, upon his arrival to Blues’ training camp on a PTO in the fall, it was easy for Neal to spot the similarities between St. Louis and his teams in Nashville and Vegas.
“To me, the fun everyone has around one another is what tells how good a team can be,” Neal said. “The way you practice and enjoy each other’s company (is huge) – the chirping, the laughing, and everything that goes along with that – you build really good friendships.”
“St. Louis won (in 2019) together, and I came into that dressing room and saw the way they operated, and I could tell exactly how they won; this is a team that really enjoys being around each other. It’s nice to be able to fit into that.”
Neal’s playoff experience is unquestioned – 110 postseason games, 33 goals, 58 points – and his quest for a title has not faded in year 16 of his professional career. That is evident in his upbeat attitude as Springfield’s most veteran presence as he prepares to make the return leap to the NHL.
“I try to have a positive mindset – I feel everything happens for a reason,” Neal said. “A lot of the guys I talked to in St. Louis had my back; they told me to go down (to Springfield) and battle and that I would be back. It was really good to hear that. To come down and get conditioning and get my legs back under me can only help. The end goal is definitely to make it back to the NHL, and if it doesn’t (happen), I’m good with that. I’m going to continue to enjoy playing the game.”