The key to having non stop fan and media negativity is losing all the time. The real culprits are Lowe and Friends. The amount of crap people watching and covering the Oilers have gone through is unprecedented for a market were fans actually care. If you missed the playoffs for 10 years straight in montreal, the fans probably would have burned down their arena.
In any case, even though Hall says the negativity can affect you, it never seemed to affect him. Doubt it could, kid is way to proud to let anything get in the way of how he wants to play, even the coach. Ebs on the other hand, if he has skin that thin, maybe it is best for him to play on a team where fans just stop watching and caring, and the media coverage focuses on other sports if the team is doing poorly. Funny how the negativity didn't affect him before, but I guess last year actually had real expectations that were within reach for the first time in his career in Edmonton.
This seems a bit revisionist to me and not necessarily supported by data.
Hall's seasons ranged from 0.65ppg to 1.11ppg that's a huge swing of 0.46ppg.
Eberle's seasons ranged from 0.62 to 0.97... a swing of 0.35ppg
The last three years here Hall scored 1.07, 0.72, 0.79 ppg... his regression was 26%
The last three years here Eberle scored 0.78, 0.68, 0.62 for a regression of 21%
Hall's average ppg in Edmonton was 0.86. His actual season by season stats were "close" (let's say +/- 0.10) to 0.86 exactly twice in 6 years.
Eberle's average ppg in Edmonton was (interestingly) also 0.75 and there are 4 of 7 seasons when he was right in that range.
Someone can do a standard deviation on that... but Hall was the far less consistent player. Clearly more impacted by the things going on around him that Eberle.
Frankly I think they were both impacted by the negativity, and I don't blame them... but to me Eberle was by far the more consistent of the two (don't confuse that with more talented).
Even in his last season, Hall was playing terrible with McDavid, then lighting it up with Draisaitl (well over a point per game), then moping again when McDavid came back and they weren't reunited. He ended up at 0.79 after having been among the league leaders in scoring for much of the time McDavid was away.