All sorts of extraneous circumstances have prevented Taylor Hall from coming close to matching his 93-point Hart Trophy-winning season with the Devils in 2017-18.
The odds are that Hall won’t come close to matching that season with the Blackhawks in 2023-24, either. But even now, at 31, he’s eager to at least have the opportunity to try.
“The first reaction to getting traded is you’re a little bit bummed,” Hall said Saturday. “But when I started looking at it more and more and realizing the opportunity that [Nick Foligno and I] both have there, [we have] the chance to show that, ‘Hey, we can still play.’ ’’
In 2018-19 with the Devils, a knee injury limited Hall to 33 games, but he still had 37 points, equaling a similar per-game rate to the previous season.
In 2019-20, he was traded mid-season to the Coyotes, then had the season cut short by the pandemic. Hall finished with 52 points in 65 games. In 2021, the pandemic and another midseason trade — this time from the Sabres to the Bruins — kept him out of rhythm.
In 2021-22 with the Bruins, he finally produced a strong season, notching 61 points in 81 games. But in 2022-23, a lower-body injury in February cost him another 21 games, and the Bruins’ loaded roster led to a reduced role. He averaged only 15:56 of ice time during the regular season, then 14:29 in the playoffs.
“We had so many good players on our team,” he said. “Basically, everyone was taking a little bit lesser of a role than they normally would be accustomed to with the hopes of winning a Stanley Cup. Obviously, that didn’t happen, but it still was an amazing year. My 2.5 years in Boston, I learned so much from those guys and from the organization. I have nothing but good memories there.
“In saying that, I’m excited to play a bigger role. I’m excited to show that I’ve grown and to show that, even at my age, I can still be a top-line guy. That’s really exciting for me.”
The one complication is that Hall’s first child, a baby boy, is due in October. When he and his wife, Rachel, made the decision, he was less than halfway through the four-year contract he signed in Boston and probably expected to stay there.
So while Hall spends this summer fruitlessly trying to improve his golf game — he joked that he’s undergoing “swing reconstruction” — and preparing for fatherhood, he admitted his family members were “caught off guard at first” by the trade to the Hawks on Monday.
A certain announcement Wednesday at the NHL Draft made Hall’s on-ice outlook much more appealing, though. The No. 1 pick in the 2010 draft who has played alongside five other No. 1 picks, Hall should be the perfect teammate for Connor Bedard.
Plus, Hawks coach Luke Richardson said Saturday that considering Bedard’s playing style — as well as Hall’s — he plans to implement offensive tactics for the team that will involve playing “faster than we did last year.”
Tailor-made game plans, 20-plus minutes of ice time and arguably the most anticipated NHL rookie of all time as a steady line-mate could turn out to be a pretty sweet gig for Hall, after all.
“You can tell by just watching [Bedard that he] knows what to expect and he has high expectations for himself,” Hall said. “For guys like [Foligno] and I, it’s about letting him play, bringing the best out of him, trying to eliminate distractions, giving him advice and mentoring him along as best as possible.
“There’s also an exciting thing [about] joining a team at the ground level and being with that every step of the way from the very beginning. There’s something to that.”
