20. When the Devils came to Toronto in December, they were in the playoffs by seven points. Asked if he thought they were good enough, Hall said he was close to convinced, except they were still too dependent on their goalies. Asked when he finally, 100 per cent believed it would happen, he pointed at the six-game road trip in March where they went 4-2.
“We were on the brink either way, just hanging on to the wild card,” he said. “The first game was in Nashville and we had a teem meeting before. Coach Hynes went up to the board and wrote our record against all the teams we still had to play. I think it was (a .672 winning percentage). It was a cool thing for him to do. He said, ‘This is how you’ve done against these teams and this is why I believe in you.’ Then we beat Nashville. I’ll remember that as something that catapulted us.”