New Jersey Devils Should Not Trade Taylor Hall

The New Jersey Devils have a bonafide offensive star for the first time since Ilya Kovalchuk left this team in disgust. The team should not even consider trading Taylor Hall at the trade deadline.

Listen, I’m sure many of you came into this article thinking it was just click bait, taking a headline on a New Jersey Devils off day when there’s not a ton going on. The Devils took three of four points this weekend against two very good teams in the Western Conference. That takes out all the doom and gloom pieces we have coming during their next losing streak. However, this topic does not come out of nowhere.

When perusing NHL headlines, I came across this from the 31 Takes article from Yahoo’s Ryan Lambert.

"New Jersey Devils: Sorry, but the best way forward for the Devils is to trade Hall at the deadline. Why give him $12 million or whatever when he’s 29 and you’re still gonna be on the playoff bubble? Let someone else handle it and get a ton of picks and prospects (hey, maybe a goalie!) for the reigning MVP while he’s still the reigning MVP."

Hmmm. Okay, let’s take a good, hard look at this for a second.

Trying to think of this objectively, it would probably make sense on paper to trade Taylor Hall at this year’s trade deadline, right? Some team would give a boatload to get Hall. He’s at the peak of his value right now, and he’s about to get paid.

Now, really not sure he’s going to get $12 million even if he hits the open market. For one, even with the salary cap going up, there aren’t many teams willing to go to $12 million for a player. John Tavares hit the open market this season, and there were really only three teams seriously in the mix.

Two of those teams were the San Jose Sharks and the Toronto Maple Leafs, which are Stanley Cup contenders, especially after adding Tavares. It’s possible other teams were in it, but Tavares didn’t take it seriously.

Now, there are some really good teams that can afford Hall. The Colorado Avalanche are a team that would be interesting. They have to give all the money to Mikko Rantanen this offseason. Former Devils prospect Alexander Kerfoot will also get a considerable raise. However, they have $33 million to do it. I’d imagine even after paying everyone, they can fit Hall’s price in two years.

There are other teams, but that’s neither here nor there. It seems like it would be a risk for Hall to try and find a team he fits with like he does with the Devils.

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That’s looking just at what Hall personally would want. He could want to go to a perennial contender, and he might even take a slight discount to do it. Yet, it still seems like a risk he may not want to take at this point in his career. He would go to something that’s a lock, like Tavares did with the Maple Leafs, but if he was going to a team that has similar question marks the Devils currently have.

Now, looking at this from a Devils point of view, the Devils should definitely not try and trade Hall at the deadline this year. For one, the return would need to be so massive, but it would be players and picks that don’t have any guarantee. The Devils have a star right now. Trading him away for prospects and picks puts the team back another few years.

This isn’t the Avs trading Matt Duchene. They had players on the upswing that were ready to become stars. The Devils have Nico Hischier who might be that good one day, possibly Ty Smith who’s a really good prospect, and that’s about it for superstar potential. That’s also asking those two young players to hit their ceiling really quickly.

Sure, this season isn’t going great, but if they trade Hall then what were they saving all this cap space for? There would be a revolt within this fanbase.

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Hall is great, and the Devils are better now and in the future with him. It would be near impossible to turn the pieces they got in return into someone even close to him. Yes, the goalie situation is disheartening right now. That could be an issue that hurts the best years of Hall. However, if Shero is able to fix that in the short term, and one of MacKenzie Blackwood, Cam Johnson, Akira Schmid or Gilles Senn turns into something good, then things will be fine.

We need to all calm down. This is one bad season that might have been the plan all along. The Devils should not panic and trade their star and best player. He needs to be the centerpiece of this team’s future.

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