Taylor Hall Only New Jersey Devils Player Deserving Of All Star Nod

The New Jersey Devils have been one of the biggest surprises of the NHL season. Despite their great record, only Taylor Hall truly deserved to be an All Star selection.

What a season it has been by the New Jersey Devils. Despite coming off a five-game losing streak, Jersey’s Team still finds itself in third place in the Metropolitan Division with multiple games at hand to just about everyone. One would think that a team over performing like they are would warrant multiple All Stars.

However, when you really look at this team, the only player deserving of an All Star nod is Taylor Hall.

Let’s talk about the only player worth an argument, Cory Schneider. I still consider Schneider as one of the best goalies in hockey. He’s way past the demons that ruined his season last year. Still, when you look at the current Metropolitan goalies on the roster, Schneider wouldn’t even be the first alternate.

Sergei Bobrovski 100% deserves to be on the All Star roster, but he was curiously snubbed. Instead, the committee voted to add Brayden Holtby and Henrik Lundqvist to represent the division. Obviously, Holtby is a curious pick. He’s definitely behind Schneider and Bobrovski when looking at this season alone. Lundqvist is also behind Bob if you ask me, but it’s hard to put Schneider ahead of him.

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Where Schneider has him beat is medium danger save percentage (MDSv%) where Schneider has 93.31% against Lundqvist’s 90.88%. However, Lundqvist has him beat in high danger save percentage (84.5% to 82%) and low danger saves (98.3% to 97.4%). If I were picking the goalie, I would pick Schneider, but it’s hard to say he was a snub.

When looking at the rest of the team, the Devils get production from everyone. While that’s great when looking at winning games, it’s bad when looking to get All Stars.

No player not named Hall has more than 30 points. Jesper Bratt is second on the team with 26 points in his 40 games. Nico Hischier came on late, but still only has 26 points.

Will Butcher’s had a great season, but it would be a hard argument to make to put any defenseman on this roster on the All Star team. Even with his 23 assists, the argument isn’t there.

Brian Boyle would be a great story at the All Star game. He’s been playing like an All Star over the past month, but his slow start following his fight against cancer has his counting stats at a much lower rate than some others on the team.

Hall, on the other hand, would be an All Star no matter what team he was playing on. He’s scoring more than a point per game. He’s playing both sides of the ice very well. Hall can carry the puck in the zone by himself, and make magic happen. He’s by far the best player on the team, and he will carry the Devils to their ceiling.

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We love to talk about snubs on the All Star game, but with its current format it’s hard to argue. There just aren’t enough spots to go around. Hall will represent the Devils perfectly against the best in the league.

All stats come from Corsica.