After hearing days of reports that the Bruins and free agent left wing Taylor Hall were getting very close to signing a lucrative deal, the news dropped this evening that Boston had finally inked him to a four-year contract with a $6 million dollar annual cap hit. For a guy with his pedigree (former No. 1 overall pick in 2010, NHL MVP in 2018, etc) and in the prime of his career-he'll turn 30 in November-this was a relative bargain for the B's. By stealing, I mean trading for Hall from the Sabres last season, the Bruins showed him enough in just 27 games (16 regular season & 11 playoff) that he was openly raving about being on the team and his desire to stay here with a long-term deal.
This is Hall's fifth NHL club (along with Edmonton, New Jersey and Arizona) so his reputation naturally preceded him but from our limited experience watching him, he seemed like a model teammate and a player that understandably is sick and tired of playing for crappy teams in bad markets. Age-wise he also represents a critical bridge that the black and gold mostly lack: a star that is neither young nor old. One of Boston's main issues is that they have too many guys on either end of the spectrum in terms of age and not enough guys like Hall that have been productive NHL players for years but haven't been in the league for a million seasons already.
We have to admit that while Hall was amazing in those regular season contests for the B's with eight goals and six assists, he was noticeably bottled up in the postseason with only three goals and two assists. That didn't make him unique because pretty much all of Boston's top offensive players got shut down in the second round by the Islanders. It's not a question of work ethic, skill or desire with Hall when it comes to the playoffs, I think it's more about not having much experience there. Before this past campaign, he only had 14 total (5 with New Jersey and 9 with Arizona) playoff games on his resume and let's be honest, it's not like there was any pressure in either of those spots plus it wasn't like they were expected to go far. With some more playoff seasoning as a Bruin, there is no doubt that he can be the dominant force that he was immediately after getting traded here last season.
Now with Hall locked up, the Bruins need to do him a solid and either sign center David Krejci or some other quality passer that can get Hall the puck at the right time and where he needs it. There was a report today from The Fourth Period that the B's were looking into signing former Coyotes center Christian Dvorak who previously played with Hall in the desert. I'm not going to pretend to know much about Dvorak (haha who really does?) but I am pretty sure that even an aging Krejci is still better than him. I would hate to see Boston's GM Don Sweeney spend all this money on Hall and then cheap out in terms of getting him some linemates that are at least somewhat on his level. Free agency officially opens next Wednesday but with the NHL Draft beginning tonight, there have been a bunch of notable trades around the league.
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