Does not cease to amaze me the lengths some will go to defend Hall and Ebs when comments like this happen. Ference makes a point about division within the locker room, those guy (without directly naming them) partying every night, and like clockwork someone throws up a stat that shows Hall was a good player (which he was), and that somehow erases the lack of commitment (it doesn’t).
Taylor Hall was a back to back Memorial Cup MVP. No one had ever done that before. His talent was undeniable, and his potential/ability was classed in that tier around previous draft peers (I’ll say below Tavares hype, comparable to Stamkos/Doughty hype). So why didn’t his game follow a similar development path? Lack of mentors? Yes, that falls on management. But at what point do you not look in the mirror and realize the party lifestyle is also hindering your game? It took being traded and having his former team make the playoffs the very next year in order to humble him enough to take the game more seriously. What does he do the next year? Wins the Hart Trophy. Why did it have to get to that point, 8 seasons in?
We’ve seen multiple former players (Belanger, Scrivens, Ference) point out how dysfunctional this team was and why, and all we hear back from the fans of the young guns is how useless those players were on the ice. Please realize this doesn’t alter the validity of their comments.