Pools Closed*
Registered User
- Dec 1, 2010
- 632
- 0
Chia is a very smart man. He knew he wanted to get rid of Hall to improve the team culture, unity and overall responsible and TEAM play on the ice and he did. And it WORKED. I pretty much know the organization was wanting to get rid of Hall last summer almost to the point of no matter what they got in return. We got lucky and Larsson has really developed into a solid defender for us this year. I'll say it again. If we magically got Hall back on this roster and gave up nothing, we would be a WORSE team. Team unity, belief, cohesiveness mental strength and team play on ice will would decrease. His unwillingness to play a total team game would spread to other players and they would also start to play a bit more of the cheating and irresponsible side of things and things could easily unravel from there. It's a fine line between playing as a cohesively strong team and playing slightly more like individuals. Little things could set of a domino affect in the wrong direction.
Funny how people always bring up that Hall is a locker room cancer despite no evidence. The guy had won everywhere he played up until coming here and then getting traded to NJ. Hall was the only one on the team for 3 years who gave it 100% every night, no matter how far out of the playoffs we were or how badly we were losing. In his last season here he took massive strides defensively and bought in to Mclellan's system. We were lucky to have him and to say that we'd be worse off with him is pure idiocy. If we had more players who had his compete level during those dark years he'd probably have a couple playoff goals under his belt by now. I wish him well in New Jersey and I'd love to see him lift a cup one day, he deserves it.