Why they traded Hall (article)

MaxR11

Registered User
Mar 28, 2017
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Here are two interesting articles that should give you an insight as to why Hall did not work here.

Taylor Hall says he didn't want a "dialogue" with his coaches with Edmonton Oilers

Why Taylor Hall feels he's held more accountable with Devils than he was with Oilers

quotes...

an important one by Ference to Bob Stauffer last year (when basically only Hall was moved):

"“The vibe and just the attitude towards being a professional had to change, and that did. And Peter (Chiarelli) did that in Boston. He moved guys around that didn’t buy into the atmosphere that he wanted to create which he knows as a winner. And he did the same thing here… This year you’re obviously seeing a step in the right direction with the professionalism of the team, the battle, the way they’re playing on the ice, the way they’re acting in the city or down in the room… Just that culture, I can’t empathize it enough, how important it is to come into a room and to know that everybody has bought in and everybody is going to be there for each other.” Ference mentioned it helped to have bigger players on the Oilers, but being a closer group was crucial. “Size is one thing and it does help because of pure physics, but the attitude of knowing that there’s not just one or two guys who are going to go out and fight the battles, and then you look down the locker and you know that guy is never going to go to war for you. I mean, that’s demoralizing. It kills teams, to not be able to look across and know that guy has got your back just as much as you have his. It’s more about that more than pure size.”



"in Edmonton, I really didn’t want to talk to coaches. I didn’t really want to have dialogue with coaches."

"Not talking to a coach, not having a dialogue, also means not listening to the coach and at the NHL level that’s not a recipe for success."

"This quote is an interesting piece in the puzzle about why Taylor Hall was traded. It goes to why the team might well have wanted to move him out and also to his value in trade, which was less than many Oilers fans hoped."

"Perhaps the change of scenery to New Jersey, and the shock of playing on another losing team, was something of a wake-up call."

Essentially I think Hynes and Shero had a REAL tough love talk with him last summer and made sure he listened and communicated and played as a team player. he was stubborn here and did not want to be that. So basically, Hall did not work here. Chia moved him out of necessity.
 

Frank the Tank

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Aug 15, 2005
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This will set off a firestorm.

Unfortunately, it takes often takes a 2nd or 3rd opinion for certain players to buy in to what their team wants. It's not an indictment of the player; instead, it's the reality of young players learning as they mature.

A similar thing happened to Cogliano when he was traded to Anaheim, and once again he found himself on the 3rd line. He decided to embrace the role and look where he is now.

Eberle took his disappointing playoff showing and subsequent trade as a kick in the butt to improve his skating.

I just wish that the Oilers could benefit from acquiring a talented player than just needed a kick in the butt to re-engage their career.
 

Cloned

Begging for Bega
Aug 25, 2003
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This will set off a firestorm.

Unfortunately, it takes often takes a 2nd or 3rd opinion for certain players to buy in to what their team wants. It's not an indictment of the player; instead, it's the reality of young players learning as they mature.

A similar thing happened to Cogliano when he was traded to Anaheim, and once again he found himself on the 3rd line. He decided to embrace the role and look where he is now.

Eberle took his disappointing playoff showing and subsequent trade as a kick in the butt to improve his skating.

I just wish that the Oilers could benefit from acquiring a talented player than just needed a kick in the butt to re-engage their career.

They did - with Maroon and Kassian - and it translated into a ridiculous season last year.
 

Jamin

Registered User
Aug 25, 2009
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I like point 5, which ference brings up and you quote in the op, too bad this season exists to fully counter the claim of professionalism, good culture etc

Without Hall who is it blamed on this year?
 

MaxR11

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Mar 28, 2017
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I have always maintained that the fault needs to be shared with the Oil org and Hall. They obviously did not know how to handle a player who was not easy to deal with and had attitude issues. On hall's side he was a bit overly immature, stubborn, overly cocky for having achieved nothing and unwilling to learn and change in his time here and it hurt the team. It was not a good match and the move was good for both the Oil and Hall. This is what I've been saying. Sure he's very good now but he was NOT here and heck likely not even good last year which was why NJ finally needed to kick Hall in the bu77.

Some people/players are just flat out more difficult to deal with and Hall (a brat) was one of those. Hopefully for him he really has changed but only time will tell.
 

Drivesaitl

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Oct 8, 2017
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May as well copy and paste my comments from another thread where this is being discussed; (I encourage people to read the Jersey article, it contains better, more detailed information)

Sounds like Hall is just getting better instruction and feedback now, and accountability, and that the Devils are giving him that. As we know here players often don't know what they should be doing or what adjustments they should make.

But heres a difference;

In one infamous offseason Halls coach Dallas Eakins tweets him that Taylor should come to the Leadville 500 to watch Eakins compete. Halls response to that was; "As if that's going to happen" Halls reply was in response to a head coach that was regularly suggesting the players should be in different shape, make TC into bootcamp, etc. So that Eakins, who was a bad player (and coach) was trying to instruct Hall on non hockey related endurance training while Hall had his own ideas on offseason prep (and Hall was never out of shape as a hockey player.) This being the same Eakins that played forwards 28mins a night in some games and more than any other forward gets in hockey.

Contrast this with the NJD coach GOING to visit Hall for one day in the summer to go over things with him respectfully and meet him on his turf and make the effort to do that.

Theres a world of difference. On one hand we have Eakins wanting to show off and pretend he's better than Hall, (Watch me compete in this famous endurance event because I am legend in own mind) vs a Devils coach engaging in no such posturing and just meeting the player on his grounds.

I know the difference this would convey to me.
 

Drivesaitl

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Oct 8, 2017
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This will set off a firestorm.

Unfortunately, it takes often takes a 2nd or 3rd opinion for certain players to buy in to what their team wants. It's not an indictment of the player; instead, it's the reality of young players learning as they mature.

A similar thing happened to Cogliano when he was traded to Anaheim, and once again he found himself on the 3rd line. He decided to embrace the role and look where he is now.

Eberle took his disappointing playoff showing and subsequent trade as a kick in the butt to improve his skating.

I just wish that the Oilers could benefit from acquiring a talented player than just needed a kick in the butt to re-engage their career.

Its not a kick in the butt. Its about very honest and frank dialog. One on one.

As in the case of any teaching the student has to sense that the instructor is conveying knowledge of value. Its a central tenet in any quality education that the learning is effective and insightful.

If the teaching is poor, as with Eakins than tuning it out is to be expected. We had vets here that were tuning Eakins out as well. The only one really attending to him was his buddy Ference.
 

Soundwave

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Mar 1, 2007
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Well the people who didn't like Hall -- you got what you wanted, did you not?

Why not be happy? Why not enjoy the poop sandwhich of a team you have left?

Connor McDavid now has less to work with in Edmonton than Matthews does in Toronto, Kane in Chicago, Crosby in Pittsburgh, Laine in Winnipeg, Stamkos in Tampa, hell even Gaudreau in Calgary probably has more talent around him.

So congrats. You got what you wanted. Can't ever be the Oilers fault. Nope.

Taylor Hall has some hiccups here, Oilers have no answer as an organization. But New Jersey magically has all the answers somehow. In a 2 hour dinner they do better than what we could in 4 years of development. MAGIC!

Justin Schultz' development spirals downwards here, Oilers have no answer as an organization. But Pittsburgh magically does.

Jordan Eberle's confidence plummets here, Oilers have no answer as an organization. But the Islanders magically can get him going!

Devan Dubnyk's confidence plummets here, Oilers have no answer. But magically he starts to put it together in Phoenix, who are tanking so they trade him to Minnesota where he's going to lead them to multiple playoff berths. MAGIC!

It's unfair, the Oilers should complain to the NHL, clearly all these other teams are using voodoo magic that we're not being supplied with.
 
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McGoMcD

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Aug 14, 2005
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Well the people who didn't like Hall -- you got what you wanted, did you not?

Why not be happy? Why not enjoy the poop sandwhich of a team you have left?

Connor McDavid now has less to work with in Edmonton than Matthews does in Toronto, Kane in Chicago, Crosby in Pittsburgh, Stamkos in Tampa, hell even Gaudreau in Calgary probably has more talent around him.

So congrats. You got what you wanted.

Can't ever be the Oilers fault. Nope.

Taylor Hall has some hiccups here, Oilers have no answer as an organization. But New Jersey magically has all the answers somehow. In a 2 hour dinner they do better than what we could in 4 years of development. MAGIC!

Justin Schultz' development spirals downwards here, Oilers have no answer as an organization. But Pittsburgh magically does.

Jordan Eberle's confidence plummets here, Oilers have no answer as an organization. But the Islanders magically can get him going!

It's unfair, the Oilers should complain to the NHL, clearly all these other teams are using voodoo magic that we're not being supplied with.

Exactly. Hall didn't have to go, the oilers needed to become a better organization around him. He was a young kid who probably had some issues, and got tired of always losing. That dind't mean he had to go though. We suck at developing talent, when said talent gets tired of it, then they have to go, we sell them for 50 cents on the dollar and some other team majically turns them around. Happens over and over, players don't need to go, the organization that mis uses them does.
 
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Soundwave

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Exactly. Hall didn't have to go, the oilers needed to become a better organization around him. He was a young kid who probably had some issues, and got tired of always losing. That dind't mean he had to go though. We suck at developing talent, when said talent gets tired of it, then they have to go, we sell them for 50 cents on the dollar and some other team majically turns them around. Happens over and over, players don't need to go, the organization that mis uses them does.

Exactly instead of the players needing to go, maybe it's time this garbage heap of a franchise gets the f*** out. Bye Chia. Bye Lowe. Bye Nicholson. Bye Mac T. Bye McLellan and your crap assistant coaches.

Leave the logo and Cup banners on your way out the door please and thank you. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

It's not Taylor Hall or Justin Schultz or Devan Dubnyk or Jordan Eberle's fault. It's this organization's fault. And now poor Connor McDavid has to suffer too.
 
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McGoMcD

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Exactly instead of the players needing to go, maybe it's time this garbage heap of a franchise gets the **** out.

Leave the logo and Cup banners on your way out the door please and thank you. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

It's not Taylor Hall or Justin Schultz or Devan Dubnyk or Jordan Eberle's fault. It's this organization's fault. And now poor Connor McDavid has to suffer too.

I shudder to think of the day when Connor McDavid has to go cause of some issue with the oilers ect......
 

Frank the Tank

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Aug 15, 2005
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Its not a kick in the butt. Its about very honest and frank dialog. One on one.

As in the case of any teaching the student has to sense that the instructor is conveying knowledge of value. Its a central tenet in any quality education that the learning is effective and insightful.

If the teaching is poor, as with Eakins than tuning it out is to be expected. We had vets here that were tuning Eakins out as well. The only one really attending to him was his buddy Ference.

I agree the messaging of such discussions remains very significant. At the same time, a trade can often make hyper-competitive and confident athletes like Hall more open to such constructive discussions.

Overall, as you said, the Eakins hiring was a critical wound to the Oilers, and the organization is still feeling the repercussions.
 

Drivesaitl

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This isn't really about Hall as much as its about an org that had a lot of Gm's and coaches that would look down at current players. McT made this full knowledge with his treatment of Penner. Eakins enough said, Lowe with his castigation of Comrie.

Basically somewhere along this org became run by older grumpy guys who thought they were better than players and fans because of 5 rings. They even acknowledged the poison pen when they hired a complete outsider Krueger to change things (and the closest they ever came) but then fired him to hire the Pegdown smarmy Eakins who was hired to bootcamp the players into shape and get them in line. Eakins was viewed as some kind of tough guy by management. A guy that would really drill the players. Lets remember Quinn was hired for the same reason. Org wanted someone gruff that was just going to tell the players basically where to go.

A common thread runs through a lot of the hires and management practice and its that players are young kids that are looked down on. Again that management is better (look, we won cups) Its an assumption that Lowe, McT etc know better than the players. Hall existed through all this.

Oilers management scheme was classically "top down" It didn't involve player feedback, it was "this is what we're doing"

The height of stupidity was the Eakins TC in Jasper where they hired military and survivalist people to run Oilers bootcamp and even bringing the Oilers out into the wild and tasking them with survivalist skills, and cycling endurance in an exercise of team building. It had absolutely nothing to do with hockey and I mocked it mercilessly at the time. It was so inherently idiotic. Other teams were practicing hockey in TC, the Oilers were practicing how to start fires with wet wood and flints in the rain. Because, you know, that's more important training.

All Eakins and Ference wanted to do here is show that they could cycle harder and climb more stairs. Of what importance was that in relation to hockey?

I encourage people to imagine how the players actually felt about such exercises. They knew the shark had jumped, only question being how much. This org had to have seemed inane to a lot of the players that played here.

Any employee that has been in week long or even day long "team building" exercises probably gets this too. Those too are typical top down management interventions. Front line workers would in most cases just prefer an extra day to catch up on their assigned workload.
 
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MoontoScott

Registered User
Jun 2, 2012
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I don't think this article is too much of a surprise for anyone who has dealt with the 18-24 age bracket.

On the one hand you have someone who is immature and a little bit arrogant. These kinds of problems are found with people of all ages in all organizations. It isn't confined to young people. Some guys are 65 going on 12 for their entire lives. I've worked with lots of them and you encounter some of them on the hockey threads as well.

On the other hand, you have some people in Oiler coaching and management who are not exactly real talented at dealing with problems of any kind--on or off the ice.

It's hindsight but I would have tried to work through the problem because as disappointing as the situation was, young people often turn their lives around in short order. It's called growing up. Yes we got a decent D-man back (rough game for him last night) but unfortunately it might be another 20 years before we can draft another guy with Hall's talent.

I'd say that we should have paid Oiler management what they were worth for the last decade and not a penny less but of course there are always the minimum wage laws to get around.
 

Todd from Leduc

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Nov 15, 2017
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When Hall squirted all over Eakins face and hair that one game I knew he had no respect for authority. Too bad there wasn’t a leader to tune him in, looks like he’s figured it out with his new team, hope they lose in the first round.
 

Soundwave

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Mar 1, 2007
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When Hall squirted all over Eakins face and hair that one game I knew he had no respect for authority. Too bad there wasn’t a leader to tune him in, looks like he’s figured it out with his new team, hope they lose in the first round.

Anyone who thinks he meant to do that is an idiot. He was on the side of the bench, it just happened to fly back and hit Eakins. It's a little water. Boo freaking hoo. A hockey bench is a gross place, you have spit, sweat, blood, all over the place at various time, oh noez not a little water.

How come no one remembers that Hall was the ONLY Oiler who stood up for Eakins and tried to take a bullet for him in the press when he said "It's not the coach's fault, it's not on the coach".
 
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Drivesaitl

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I agree the messaging of such discussions remains very significant. At the same time, a trade can often make hyper-competitive and confident athletes like Hall more open to such constructive discussions.

Overall, as you said, the Eakins hiring was a critical wound to the Oilers, and the organization is still feeling the repercussions.

But the Eakins hiring was also just a symptom of a greater underlying theme of a top down organization (same one that hired Pat Quinn) and that felt that players need to be pegged down.

I've taken Management studies, I'm sure some other people here have. The best management schemes INCLUDE all levels of feedback, are interactive, and allow front line input, all hierarchy input. Top down management is classic dinosaur do what you are told management style. The Oilers org even tried to do this with Pronger. Even to the extent of trying to tell him how to manage his personal life.

So that the Oilers org, itself, was actually the critical wound. They say that success corrupts. In a sense it did with a lot of the managers we have had here. They feel they are better than they are, know better than the present players, and even occasionally exhibit delusional grandeur and really poor boundaries and interaction.
 

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