Taylor Hall was actually injured though. He was hit with a visible knee on knee hit, missed time, and came back with a lost step in his stride that you would associate with such an injury.
RNH has been bad all year. Sure, he was putting up points for a while, but even the former whipping boy and poster boy for soft ineffective play in Purcell can rack up points playing with Hall/Drai. His one game absence due to the flu cost him his spot with the players that were making him look superficially good, which resulted him being saddled with a slow starting Eberle on a line where his lack of physicality, inability to impact the game defensively, and complete lack of ability to create offense have exposed him for what he is; a mediocre and mistake prone player who is struggling to fit in with a new coach as one of the primary contributors to a line that is outright costing the team games on a nightly basis. An effect made all the more glaring by the fact that Hall is still drawing all the top line matchups.
It's nothing new either, he's been road kill for higher level opposition for years now. The only difference between the way RNH is perceived this year and previous years, is that fans were far more willing to blame Hall or Eberle for why RNH wasn't as good as advertised(Hall/Ebs don't want to backcheck, so RNH has to cover for them!). Fanbase expectations and reality are starting to clash, as it always does with any disappointing prospect, which isn't really RNH's fault in a lot of ways. He was unjustifiably hyped up as the savior at center, with Gretzky like vision and hundred point seasons in his future, a level of hype he never had a chance in hell of achieving with his skillset.
