We had the depth to fill the hole Hall left. New Jersey did not have the depth to fill the hole Larsson left.
Well, if you read the post I was alluding to, apparently Hall was responsible for the Devils not producing enough offence and not stopping enough pucks
And there is merit to that train of thought. The oil did not have a good overall offence when Hall was here even though he did "get his points" for the most part. I believe something in his game and his attitude affects the entire team and individual players on his team in a negative way. It's almost like the opposite of Gretzky where he makes EVERYONE on his team better. Somehow I strongly believe Hall makes his teammates for the most part worse. Selfishness? Calling out or alienating players he deems inferior? Something, I'm not exactly sure what but he brings a sort of negative energy to the team and hinders other players from playing with confidence in their roles. At least I believe that was the case here. Not sure about NJ. Though I do believe there is a connection between him being there and the NJ offence not improving any from last year, other NJ players playing worse this year than last and allowing many more goals than last year. I think in a subconscious way his lack of care for sound reliable defence spreads through the team and this makes it difficult for the goalie. Schneider not playing well this year MAY be attributed to Hall's presence on the team.
And we could continue to speculate we can possibly find links to Hall being responsable for world hungar! I think you maybe reading to much into this lol. Could it be as simple as Larsson being a very underrated defensemen and stabilizing influence on a team? Heck look how great our defense looks!
To be fair, we had depth when we signed Lucic. He filled, on paper at least, the 1LW hole.
New Jersey did not address that depth problem. They tried with Ben Lovejoy and Kyle Quincey, but it didn't go well. Lovejoy was awful. Combine with Greene taking a big step back and Severson not delivering as hoped, not filling that hole hurt New Jersey.
This narrative needs to die.
the amount of "SEE LARSSON IS BETTER THAN HALL THE OILERZ WON THE TRADE" that is going on in this forum, social media and mainstream media, is borderline sickening.
Having to bastardize a player to prop up another is not a good way to go, especially a player that was not the problem on the Oilers.
I love Adam Larsson. I've been a booster of his since the trade happened. I disagree very strongly when somebody points out that he's overrated because he doesn't produce a good Corsi or suggest he's only a number three defenceman because he doesn't lead in TOI on his team. What he brings isn't really quantified yet in Advance Stats (IMO). He's a top pairing guy who plays against top competition and often starts in his own zone. He brought a much needed element that the Oilers lacked, which was balance and you know, a strong defensive game.
That said, the constant downplaying of Taylor Hall is getting pretty bad. For example, a poster above corralates that New Jersey didn't get better because they added Hall. Hall was injured, still managed to contribute 53 points, despite missing 8 games. He was part of nearly 30% of New Jersey's total offence.
Instead of blaming Hall for the lack of offence, where were other pieces like Michael Cammerleri? He had only 10 goals and 31 points in 61 games.
Or then the same poster mentions how the Devils went down in Goals allowed. However, was there any mention of their goaltender, Cory Schneider, having a down year with a bad 0.908 save percentage? No. Apparently that's Hall's fault too.
I'm happy with the trade that it's worked out, but let's not say that the Oilers fleeced the Devils. Both teams got a really good player. Right now, the narrative that Larsson> Hall looks like a desperate validation.
Well we kinda knew we had Lucic when that deal went down. We did also have Maroon and Pouilot to help on the LW. Even if we needed some help at wing it's a lot easier to get a winger than that huge hole we had on d.
I said from the beginning though that I didn't understand what NJ was really doing. They needed d help even with Larsson, so what were they trying to do? All they really had to do was look at the Oilers and see that making your d even weaker is a bad move. Unless of course you had a contingency plan to make another deal
Well we kinda knew we had Lucic when that deal went down. We did also have Maroon and Pouilot to help on the LW. Even if we needed some help at wing it's a lot easier to get a winger than that huge hole we had on d.
I said from the beginning though that I didn't understand what NJ was really doing. They needed d help even with Larsson, so what were they trying to do? All they really had to do was look at the Oilers and see that making your d even weaker is a bad move. Unless of course you had a contingency plan to make another deal
lol what? Possession and scoring chances and shots don't matter? In what sport? Certainly not hockey. I mean, that's how you score goals.
The Oilers are winning and the Devils are losing are not mutually about Larsson and Hall alone. That's the problem here. It's very short sighted. Are you saying that a healthy Klefbom, a healthy McDavid, a Vezina like season from Talbot all less important than having Adam Larsson? Because I'd have a tough time believing that. I think Larsson has been important but let's not kid ourselves.
Hall was a 53 point winger, on pace for 60 points, which would have been a team lead. On the Oilers, he would have been third behind McDavid and Draisaitl.
Again, you're making it sound like Hall was responsible for the team's "inability to win". The problem here is the following:
Hall's teams had defencemen like Andrew Ference, Andy Sutton, Jim Vandermeer, Cam Barker, Nikita Nikitin, Anton Belov, Nick Schultz, Alex Plante, Colton Teubert, Brad Hunt, Mark Fistric, Theo Peckham and much more bad on the backend.
Hall's teams had goaltending gems like an old Nikolai Khabibulin, Jason Labarbera, Devan Dubnyk before being outstanding, Ben Scrivens, Viktor Fasth,Ilya Bryzgalov.
The argument that the team couldn't win with Hall is crap. Of course they couldn't. They didn't supply his core with actual NHL players. That's on management, not Taylor Hall.
When 90% of the fan base wouldn't shut up about how Chiarelli is the worst GM ever and Taylor Hall is the best winger in the league, worst trade of all time and other non sense can you really blame some original supporters of the trade for slagging Hall. Hall deserves a slagging he's had 3 straight sub par seasons and just isn't as good as oiler fans built him up to be in their minds.Yep, I agree with this. Not sure why fans have to continuously slag Hall at this point. He's no longer an Oiler. Who cares? We're all glad to have Larsson who's been an absolute stud for our team in the backend. Move on, everyone.
I even went WTF when Matheson asked McLellan about the Larsson/Hall crap after last night's post game. The media especially needs to let it go. Spector's latest article was just asking for click baits when he added Hall's name. This crap's gone tiresome like talking about an ex from the past.
I guess they overestimated the impact Taylor Hall would have on their anemic offense. Their team is really horrible. Nearly Oilers' level horrible, when Hall was drafted. They'll spend the next 5 years in the basement until they fill the holes through the draft.
I guess they overestimated the impact Taylor Hall would have on their anemic offense. Their team is really horrible. Nearly Oilers' level horrible, when Hall was drafted. They'll spend the next 5 years in the basement until they fill the holes through the draft.
When 90% of the fan base wouldn't shut up about how Chiarelli is the worst GM ever and Taylor Hall is the best winger in the league, worst trade of all time and other non sense can you really blame some original supporters of the trade for slagging Hall. Hall deserves a slagging he's had 3 straight sub par seasons and just isn't as good as oiler fans built him up to be in their minds.
I don't give a **** about Haylor Tall anymore. I hope he goes on to have a successful career but it's all about Adam Larsson now and I was content with the trade at the time and now I'm ecstatic about it. And it's not just because of the two goal game last night. It's because we finally have a legitimate top pairing, something we haven't had since Smith/Pronger. Defense wins championships and now we have an actual NHL caliber defense.
I was considering getting a Larsson jersey for the past few weeks, I might have to make good on that.
Not even close to Oiler level brutal. We had JFJ on the top line for part of the year, and Khabibulin as our starter. In comparison NJ has Schneider who is a legit starter in the league, and a great group of forwards who are mostly young and growing. Hall, Henrique, Zacha, Palmieri, DSP, Bennett, Wood, Quenneville, Mcleod, Speers. On top of that they'll be adding another good young player this year at the draft. They also have a good possibility of moving up sitting at 4th. Hardly a dire situation. They just need a few good UFA signing similar to Edmonton with Lucic, Sekera, and Russell and it could totally turn them around. Dont know if they'd be contenders, but they'd for sure be in the running for a playoff spot.
The stats say otherwise. 70 points this year vs 62 points by the Oilers in 2010-11. The Oilers had decent players too for stretches of time (remember when Hall was more than a PPG player and RNH looked like the future 1C).
The stats say otherwise. 70 points this year vs 62 points by the Oilers in 2010-11. The Oilers had decent players too for stretches of time (remember when Hall was more than a PPG player and RNH looked like the future 1C).
I just love Larsson's game even without the offense. The fact now that he stepped up is just something this team had lacked for years and is continuing to show they have overcome. That is guys who shouldn't be putting up points are doing it and winning games for us.
Yep, I agree with this. Not sure why fans have to continuously slag Hall at this point.
Agreed. Its a big myth that Hall was some sort of "driver". He got prime minutes on a garbage team and was never able to drag his team to a single playoff the way a guy like Tavares has.
If people are going to throw words like driver around they need to look at a guy like Leon and refer to Klef's comments on Hall and how he never ever showed up when the team needed someone to rise to the occassion.