New Jersey Devils: Five One-For-One Trades For Taylor Hall

Patrik Laine

Patrik Laine might be the most intriguing player out of all of the current RFAs looking for a contract. He has gotten his career started off to a torrid start as far as goal scoring, but there are many avenues of his game that need improvement. His 2018-19 season was also pretty bad with all things considered. He still scored 30 goals and had 20 assists for 50 points.

18 of those 30 goals, however, came in the month of November. That means he scored 12 goals in every other month combined. He was as on and off as you can be and it makes it hard to evaluate how big of a contract he deserves. The Winnipeg Jets also probably don’t want to be the team that lets the next Alex Ovechkin go because of one inconsistent year. In his rookie year, he had 36 goals and followed it up with 44 in his second year. Then his 30-goal third season had everyone questioning him.

He might be worth the risk if Taylor Hall decided that he wanted to leave New Jersey. Winnipeg might be willing to deal Laine and if they can get a player of Hall’s caliber in return, despite him being a little older, they might take that on. And for the Devils, if Laine came to a team with guys like Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier, and Nikita Gusev, he would most likely thrive. The sky is the limit as far as goal scoring for Laine and coming to a young Devils team might be worth exploring.