New Jersey Devils: Waiting For Taylor Hall Deal Makes It Worse

The New Jersey Devils held Taylor Hall out of the lineup against the Colorado Avalanche. We expected a deal to go down within hours, but we all woke up and Hall was still on this team.

Tom Petty told us first that the waiting is the hardest part. It feels like he wrote that song for New Jersey Devils fans right now. It’s become inevitable that Taylor Hall will not finish his career with the Devils like many of us hoped, but at least the Devils will trade him now instead of waiting like the New York Islanders did with John Tavares.

Now, however, it’s hard to focus on games and really evaluate what’s going on during play. It doesn’t help that the Devils haven’t won a game in December and only won two since the middle of November. The Devils had a small chance to turn things around after a disastrous October, but this is just not a good team.

The only thing Devils fans can talk about is what is possibly coming back in a Taylor Hall trade. What makes it worse is a lot of the rumors have a really bad package coming the other way. Will it be defensive dynamo Bowen Byram? Doesn’t look that way. Will they get a good defenseman to play right now like Colton Parayko? That’s extremely doubtful. Will we get any top prospect or major NHL player? All signs point to no.

Now, these are just rumors, and none of us are in the room. We have to take them with a grain of salt because things change and teams get more and more desperate as the NHL trade freeze draws near.

Hall leaving the Devils is very sad, but waiting for him to go may be worse. It’s like knowing that you’re going to break up with your high school sweetheart when you go to college, but you stick with it for the summer. It’s inevitable. It doesn’t make it hurt any less.