The New Jersey Devils traded Taylor Hall to the Arizona Coyotes this past week. With multiple draft picks on the line, and with many conditions, should the Devils hope the Coyotes succeed or fail this season?
After months of speculation surrounding Taylor Hall, the New Jersey Devils traded away their star for a package surrounding draft picks. They did get three prospects, but the real prize was a 1st-round pick in 2020 and a conditional pick in 2021. The conditions surrounding the Yotes 2021 pick include re-signing Taylor Hall and winning a round in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
If the Coyotes win a playoff round this season, the 2021 3rd-round pick becomes a 2nd-round pick automatically. If they re-sign Hall, it becomes a 1st. It seems like we should root for the Coyotes this season so that we get a better draft pick next season.
However, there’s the situation surround the 1st-round pick this season. You’ve probably heard that this is an absolutely stacked draft in 2020. Obviously, the worse the Yotes do in the standings, the better the pick the Devils get.
Right now, the Coyotes pick is slated to be 28th. That’s not great. Now, look closely at the NHL standings. The Coyotes are literally five points away from that pick falling all the way to 12th. Heck, they are one point away from falling to 20th in the 1st round of the draft. There is not a lot of margin for error.
The Coyotes made this trade thinking that Hall was going to push them over the top, but Darcy Kuemper got hurt in the Coyotes last game, and he’s now week to week. That puts a ton of pressure on Antti Raanta to hold down the fort for a month or more. Raanta has been pretty good in his 13 games, but his .919 save percentage is not the lights out .929 that Kuemper had.
Ivan Prosvetov has been very good in the minor leagues, posting a .944 save percentage. He could solidify the crease, but should we want that? Or should we want it to all fall apart so we get a better draft pick?
The Coyotes can only fall so far. They aren’t get to Devils level bad, but there’s a lot of teams very close in the standings. There can be a lot of movement, and the Coyotes could easily miss the playoffs. There’s a lot of hockey left to play, and with their starting goalie getting injured, anything can happen.
Also, there’s the Taylor Hall factor. If things go south quickly, the Coyotes could opt to trade Taylor Hall again. They would hurt their chance of going for it all while they are missing their 1st-round pick, but they could at least get something for a depreciating asset.
To get back to the question at hand, the Devils should absolutely root for the Coyotes to fall down the standings. It’s unfortunate for Hall himself, but selfishly we need the Devils pick to be a top-15 pick. If it’s somewhere there, the Devils could get two major pieces in this team’s future. A pick in the 20s would still be nice, along with a pick in the 2nd round next season, but if you’re the Devils, you’d much rather have one supreme piece and one meh piece instead of two decent pieces. This team needs more awesome prospects, and teams get those in the top 15.