Taylor Hall deserves long look from Bruins

The 2019-20 NHL season — long, strange trip that it was — is now over, nearly a full calendar year to the day that it began. The Tampa Bay Lightning are as deserving a champion as you’ll find, one that was the best on paper and one that went out and proved it on the ice, overcoming some key injuries to boot.

Now the Bruins have their measuring stick as they try to reshape their team in this accelerated offseason. The NHL draft, where the trade market has heated up in past years, is being held next week on Oct. 6-7. Two days later, the free agency market opens.

The work that the Bruins have to do, as demonstrated by the Lightning, is clear. They must add some skilled physicality to the lineup up front that will give them three lines that are legitimate threats to score five-on-five. In their five-game loss to the Lightning, the B’s were too reliant on their top line and power play.

A name that has been percolating in the last few weeks in connection with the Bruins is one of the big ones — Taylor Hall, the first overall pick from a decade ago and the Hart Trophy winner just two years ago. While he may have his detractors, Hall is worth a vigorous kick of the tires from the Bruins.

Drafted into an Edmonton Oilers’ organization that had been spinning its wheels seemingly forever, Hall was put in a difficult position from the get-go. When a player is made the focal point of an organization at the age of 18, bad on-ice habits can creep in and in the player’s mind. It can become all about him. Those thoughts can be hard to shake.

Traded to the New Jersey Devils in the summer of 2016, Hall finally put it all together in the 2017-18 season, carrying the Devils to the playoffs in an MVP season in which he posted 39-54-93 totals. But the next season, he was limited to 33 games (the injury history is another thing that goes in the con column). And in the coronavirus-interrupted 2019-20 season, his walk season, Hall made the unwise decision to get into a beef with the Jersey fans before being eventually traded to Arizona when he would not commit to re-signing in Newark.

So the wisdom in pursuing Hall is debatable. But know this: He has never had the opportunity to play within a winning culture of the kind that exists in Boston. Hall wouldn’t even have to play on the first line. He could be the middle-six help that Phil Kessel — who arrived in Pittsburgh with his fair share of critics — provided for the Penguins in their back-to-back Cup wins. It could give the B’s a pretty formidable left side with Brad Marchand, Hall, Jake DeBrusk and possibly Trent Frederic. How eager Hall would be for that kind of chance is a question. If he is, he might have to be willing to take a few shillings less than he’d receive elsewhere.

The potential pursuit of Hall is financially contingent on Torey Krug not returning, a scenario that has seemed highly likely since his end-of-season Zoom conference that felt very much like a fond farewell. According to TSN’s Frank Seravalli, the B’s have offered Krug a deal for six years at $6.5 million per season. That sounds like a good-faith attempt to retain the defenseman, a deal that keeps Krug within the payroll structure. But this is Krug’s one chance for a mega-deal. Even with the coronavirus-induced flat cap, it’s reasonable to expect there’s a team that will go at least that high in salary and then tack on the seventh season.

If this is indeed the end to this mutually beneficial relationship, then it’s only common sense that the B’s will deal his exclusive negotiating rights between now and Oct. 9, adding something to a depleted stable of picks (with no first- or fourth-rounder, the B’s first pick is at 58). Teams that acquire a player’s rights can offer a contract up to eight years.

The B’s have some other business to take care of. With just under $15 million left under the cap, they’ve got to re-sign RFAs DeBrusk and Matt Grzelcyk as well as UFA Zdeno Chara. If they do go after Hall, the feeling here is that re-signing Chara is a must to help maintain the culture. There are rumblings that DeBrusk could be shooting for a $5 million yearly salary, which would be a tad high at this stage of his career (no arbitration rights). A bridge deal would be more helpful for the B’s. If he’s not amenable, then they may have to look at moving him. Grzelcyk, who is arbitration eligible, should get a decent raise from his $1.4 million. And though GM Don Sweeney said he has “zero reservations” about going back with Tuukka Rask, it remains to be seen if any calls he’s been getting on the Vezina-caliber goaltender — and word is he has been getting a few — knock his socks off.

Regardless of how all the pieces of the puzzle fit into place, it very much appears the Bruins will be losing an impact player in Krug. They don’t necessarily have to replace that on the back end, but they have to replace it somewhere in the lineup.

And Taylor Hall is an impact player. The B’s coveted him a decade ago when he went first overall and the B’s took Tyler Seguin with the second pick.

The time might be right to make the union finally happen.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2GguSuZ