Speculation: Taylor Hall's value leading up to the deadline

[Skinnyjimmy08]

Rangers offer Hajek and a 3rd to solidify another 1st overall pick

Yup...struggling teams need to invest in acquiring Hall so they can get that 2021 1st overall!!... not teams looking to make a push

 

[ManofSteel55]

I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't get traded at his salary and the NMC.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

Not much value, the guy is a cursed player. Notice all those horrible problems started coming out in Arizona after they acquired him. Now whats happening in Buffalo.

 

[Fogelhund]

Rangers offer Hajek and a 3rd to solidify another 1st overall pick

He's been traded a few times at the deadline. Have any of those teams actually ended up with the first overall pick? I think he only works as a charm, if you have him on the roster from the beginning of the season. It takes a little longer for him to work his magic, and completely curse a team. He's doing a fine job in Buffalo now with that.

 

[Zman5778]

I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't get traded at his salary and the NMC.

The NMC doesn't mean a whole heckuva lot unless Hall has a Skinner-like love of Buffalo. It just means that he can control his destination a bit more. And I would think Buffalo would be retaining 50% on that deal to open up more teams.

 

[McOilers97]

Not much value, the guy is a cursed player. Notice all those horrible problems started coming out in Arizona after they acquired him. Now whats happening in Buffalo.

To play devil's advocate: what "horrible problems" in Arizona? I recognize that they were 19-12-4 prior to the trade last year and only 14-17-4 afterwards. But they're 9-9-3 this season now, also without him, so it's not like their 19-12-4 start last year was their "normal" level of play, and their roster now is by and large the exact same.

2019-20 GAA/save percentage before Hall trade: 2.34 and 0.927
2019-20 GAA/save percentage after Hall trade: 2.89 and 0.912
2020-21 GAA/save percentage: 2.95 and 0.902

I mean, maybe it needs to be acknowledged that the team was riding an absolutely insane save percentage to be where they were prior to acquiring Hall. Kuemper got hurt, the unsustainable numbers went away, and we saw what calibre of team they really are, and are now this season.

As for Buffalo...they weren't exactly thriving prior to Hall coming on board either.

The Buffalo risk taken by Hall has backfired spectacularly so far, but if I had to guess it means that when he's looking at his options in UFA this summer, he won't take the risk of going to a pretender/bad team again.

 

[HawkeyTalkMan]

This 1 year deal pretty much proved to be a disaster on all fronts. I don't know what upside came of this for either Hall or Buffalo. Buffalo sounds like they still want to extend him and its probably going to come at a higher cost they can afford and the Hall as a sabre experiment has been a disaster. His pro rated contract also is now prohibitive for even a good TDL return

Hall also has played his way out of a higher paycheck too

 

[Guttersniped]

His shooting % is also much lower than career % suggesting a dramatic improvement is not out of the cards...it probably won't happen in Buffalo though because Hall has to create his own chances in addition to taking a quality shot.

Put Hall on a contender and you could easily see a 5% shooting increase

Well, his shooting % can’t get much worse. Hall has always been more of a volume shooter, his MVP was anomaly in terms of goal scoring, but he’s averaged 29 goals/82 games pace. I don’t see how Buffalo is the whole excuse, particularly since he hasn’t shot particularly well on the PP since his MVP year. His PDO 5v5 is .935 so there’s some bad luck behind the zero goals.

Taylor Hall - Summary - Natural Stat Trick

 

[McOilers97]

Well, his shooting % can’t get much worse. Hall has always been more of a volume shooter, his MVP was anomaly in terms of goal scoring, but he’s averaged 29 goals/82 games pace. I don’t see how Buffalo is the whole excuse, particularly since he hasn’t shot particularly well on the PP since his MVP year. His PDO 5v5 is .935 so there’s some bad luck behind the zero goals.

Taylor Hall - Summary - Natural Stat Trick

I've come to the same conclusions.

- Career 10% shooter currently below 2%
- Corsi/fenwick are 55-56%, yet PDO is 94% and GF/GA at even-strength is 7/14. Seems like a combo of bad luck and bad linemate and overall team performance/schemes.

Quite funny that people want to act like this is who Taylor Hall is. Recency bias is very, very strong here.

Obviously the "real" Hall isn't the 90+ point MVP that we saw in 2017-18, but I don't see any reason why he isn't a 25goal and 70 point player in a better situation, for at least the next 3-ish years until he starts approaching mid 30s.

 

[JT Kreider]

He's been traded a few times at the deadline. Have any of those teams actually ended up with the first overall pick?

...no? The Devils got 1st overall the last lottery he was with them and AZ was not in the 1st lotto with the non-playoff reams and then beat Nashville in the play in round so AZ was not in the 2nd lotto for 1st overall.

 

[EK392000]

Which teams do you guys think will be pursuing him?

 

[ManofSteel55]

The NMC doesn't mean a whole heckuva lot unless Hall has a Skinner-like love of Buffalo. It just means that he can control his destination a bit more. And I would think Buffalo would be retaining 50% on that deal to open up more teams.

Even 50% doesn't open up a ton of teams unless they have a dump to send back to Buffalo, and Buffalo is willing to accept that dump. You're right though, Hall will likely waive that NMC for most playoff teams.

 

[tatertot843]

50% retained traded for a 2nd and a late 3rd maybe.

 

[HawkeyTalkMan]

Hall on pace for about 4 goals and 51 pt full season 82 games

Yeah no team is coughing up a 1st for Hall with an $8MM cap hit in a flat cap year, even at 50% retained IMO. The teams that have that kind of space, assets, and willingness to part with those assets are almost zero. Layer that on top of Hall has been living off his Hart winning season the last few years more than his play warrants a top return or even close to an MVP type player

 

[BFLO]

I think Hall 50% retained + the value of taking on your teams 4 million or so in cap dumps is worth a 1st+

 

[67 others]

I've come to the same conclusions.

- Career 10% shooter currently below 2%
- Corsi/fenwick are 55-56%, yet PDO is 94% and GF/GA at even-strength is 7/14. Seems like a combo of bad luck and bad linemate and overall team performance/schemes.

Quite funny that people want to act like this is who Taylor Hall is. Recency bias is very, very strong here.

Obviously the "real" Hall isn't the 90+ point MVP that we saw in 2017-18, but I don't see any reason why he isn't a 25goal and 70 point player in a better situation, for at least the next 3-ish years until he starts approaching mid 30s.

Better than playing with Jack Eichel?

Hall is a renowned lazy player who coasts on his skill and is generally been talked about as being uncoachable and a terrible influence for nearly a decade now. Worse he has been known to drag others into his sphere of smarmy laziness and was seen as a negative presence almost everywhere he played.

 

[McOilers97]

Better than playing with Jack Eichel?

Hall is a renowned lazy player who coasts on his skill and is generally been talked about as being uncoachable and a terrible influence for nearly a decade now. Worse he has been known to drag others into his sphere of smarmy laziness and was seen as a negative presence almost everywhere he played.

A couple points:

1) Hall and Eichel mostly haven't been linemates at even-strength. They started the year together but were separated early on and it has been Olofsson-Eichel-Reinhart and Hall-Staal-Cozens lately, with a different winger here or there.

2) Being an Oilers fan that watched Hall closely from 2010-2016, I completely dispute the notion of Hall being lazy. He was the team's best player by a pretty wide margin until McDavid was drafted, and on some pretty terrible teams he managed to Corsi at just shy of 50%, netting +3 in 5 on 5 goals (261GF-258GA), while producing at a rate of 70 points per 82 games with 2 top 10 scoring finishes in the entire league over those 6 years. To my eye, he was the one making everything happen on whatever line he played on for those years. It would be fair to call him a bit soft/lazy defensively, but his forechecking and effort put into puck retrieval in the offensive zone are his bread-and-butter as a player. He came up with a lot of high-effort plays to make things happen for the team offensively, and tilted the ice positively on a lot of nights. The results as far as win-loss don't match that because he was only out there for 18-20 out of the 60 minutes in the game. I won't speak to coachability, and there is some smoke around his locker-room presence that I can't dispute though. A lot of this reputational stuff though (I think) is some immaturity (not uncommon for young, rich and famous people) and not always handling his emotions/frustrations well in his early 20s, playing on such a bad team.

To me, it feels like you're parroting some common HF rhetoric on this player without having seen them play.

 

[67 others]

A couple points:

1) Hall and Eichel mostly haven't been linemates at even-strength. They started the year together but were separated early on and it has been Olofsson-Eichel-Reinhart and Hall-Staal-Cozens lately, with a different winger here or there.

2) Being an Oilers fan that watched Hall closely from 2010-2016, I completely dispute the notion of Hall being lazy. He was the team's best player by a pretty wide margin until McDavid was drafted, and on some pretty terrible teams he managed to Corsi at just shy of 50%, netting +3 in 5 on 5 goals (261GF-258GA), while producing at a rate of 70 points per 82 games with 2 top 10 scoring finishes in the entire league over those 6 years. To my eye, he was the one making everything happen on whatever line he played on for those years. It would be fair to call him a bit soft/lazy defensively, but his forechecking and effort put into puck retrieval in the offensive zone are his bread-and-butter as a player. He came up with a lot of high-effort plays to make things happen for the team offensively, and tilted the ice positively on a lot of nights. The results as far as win-loss don't match that because he was only out there for 18-20 out of the 60 minutes in the game. I won't speak to coachability, and there is some smoke around his locker-room presence that I can't dispute though. A lot of this reputational stuff though (I think) is some immaturity (not uncommon for young, rich and famous people) and not always handling his emotions/frustrations well in his early 20s, playing on such a bad team.

To me, it feels like you're parroting some common HF rhetoric on this player without having seen them play.

Not really HF rhetoric. I am parroting what his coaches and teammates and a lot of connected news sources said about him after he left each team he was on.

 

[Mtler in Toronto]

Any team that wants to win the draft lottery would pay big for him.

 

[Confucius]

If he only accepts a trade to 1-2 teams, it could happen. Sounds like he's pretty content staying in Buffalo.

Does Buffalo want him? What would one goal's next contract be? Talk about taking a risk.

They signed him to a one year show me contract. Well he showed them, now what?

 

[Kupo]

He looked like complete ass tonight against the Rangers.

 

[Spektre]

Not much value, the guy is a cursed player. Notice all those horrible problems started coming out in Arizona after they acquired him. Now whats happening in Buffalo.

Can the Blues get another cursed player from Buffalo????

 

[devilsfan35]

At this point signing a 1 yr 1mil deal with toronto or Colorado would have set him up financially for years to come

 

[Mr Positive]

The NMC is not meant to prevent a trade. If the Sabres are bad and there is only one trade offer, Hall will waive.

He wants to have the power. Like maybe Tampa offers less than the Isles but Hall wants to go to Tampa.

And yes, his deal was likely written with the promise that Buffalo trades Hall at full retention if it doesnt work out

 

[Faltorvo]

This 1 year deal pretty much proved to be a disaster on all fronts. I don't know what upside came of this for either Hall or Buffalo. Buffalo sounds like they still want to extend him and its probably going to come at a higher cost they can afford and the Hall as a sabre experiment has been a disaster. His pro rated contract also is now prohibitive for even a good TDL return

Hall also has played his way out of a higher paycheck too

IF i understand the rules right,,IF Buff retains half AND over half the season is played

Halls cap hit would be in the 2m range