Replacement*
Checked out
Like all those games that Hall refused to forecheck and was as guilty as everyone else for flyby poke checks. Like all those games that Hall got pissed off and tried to do everything himself and refused to use his teammates(a big reason for Klef's comments and what he was refering to imo and why Hall got traded). Like last year where him and Drai slowed down and although Drai lost the stamina to keep up with Hall and the off the rush magic was gone, Drai continued to play intelligent hockey in the ozone and Hall had no clue where to go and how to cycle. Basically looked like Yak out there as to where to go. Maroon comes in and talks about keeping pucks deep on teams and Hall just continues to do the same thing, rush the zone and that's it.
I love Hallsy and a line built for him can and always will be deadly, but players had to adjust to him...not the other way around. So when you sasy he was the only one trying and other players took the night off. Nope. The opposite. Hall refused to adjust to the game being played around him or his teammates just as much, if not more
But this assumes the Oilers were playing an airtight sensible 200ft game away from Hall except they weren't. This team didn't adhere to appreciably more system play in game 82 than they did in game 1.
The thing to key on is Hall didn't exist here in a vacuum. The things currently being attributed to Hall (because he's gone) were the fault of the whole team and org. Ironically Hall had better GA stats than several of his colleagues this past season and was among the most likely players to show up for games in the time he played here.
This is a poor team, and we extricated the 2nd best player we have from a poor team.