The New Jersey Devils enjoyed the one season of Taylor Hall’s career where he was one of the best players in the game. Is he capable of getting back there, or was his MVP season just a blip on his career?
This season might have been the most important in the career of former New Jersey Devils superstar Taylor Hall. He was coming off a knee injury, the Devils built a talented roster around him, and his contract was coming to an end. Hall did not step up like he probably should have. Instead, he is having a good, not great season where he’s looked tentative at times, and locked in at others. Either way, his time in New Jersey looked like he was never willing to take over, and his time after his trade to the Arizona Coyotes just looks like he’s trying too hard.
During the 2017-18 season, when he ended up winning the Hart Trophy and had his first playoff berth of his career, he was incensed at times. There was just no stopping Hall. Every single night, no matter the opponent, he was one of the best players on the ice. Consistency was his game, and he carried a mediocre Devils team to the playoffs. They held off the surging Florida Panthers that was arguably more talented, but just didn’t have the MVP on their roster.
Going into that season, Bleacher Report didn’t even rank Hall as one of the best left wings in the league. He wasn’t mentioned in any category in that year’s NHL Player Poll. Never was Hall ranked in the top ten of anything after his draft year. Maybe that was because he is on the New Jersey Devils, a team that’s notorious for fighting for any media coverage. Either way, Hall is not one to see his name synonymous with “best in the league”.
He was getting love after winning the Hart Trophy, but it was short lived. Hall suffered from an injury-riddled season in 2018-19, and he just wasn’t the same to start this season. It seemed like he was tentative at times, and just going through the motions at others. It doesn’t even feel like he was on the Devils this season. Obviously, everything seems like a blur with how this season went, but it’s crazy to think that just four months ago a former MVP was on the team.
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Can Taylor Hall ever become an MVP caliber player again? Circumstance has a lot to do with it. He will get to dictate those circumstances whenever the offseason begins.
Still, it seems like this version of Taylor Hall might be a totally different person. However, it’s entirely possible that the one season was just one of those magical seasons that never happens again.
Taking a look at some of the past Hart Trophy winners, it’s a lot of the league’s best, but there are some that slip through and makes you do a double take. Some of the most recent examples include Corey Perry in 2011, Martin St. Louis in 2004 and Jose Theodore in 2002. Don’t get us wrong, these are great players, but they aren’t the best in the world that Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby and Mario Lemieux were.
Looking deeper, the Perry and Hall argument might be one that makes a lot of sense. We all knew Hall and Perry were extremely talented players before they won their Hart Trophies, but neither had as much as a Hart Trophy vote coming into their MVP seasons. The year after Perry’s 98-point season, he went down to 60 points despite playing 80 games. He still was a very good player, and even had a 43-goal season, but he only really had one great season of note, and that year he was 12th in Hart Trophy voting. Never again did he get Hart Trophy votes, and now he’s a role player on the Dallas Stars, and not a particularly good one at 34 years old.
Hall is looking for a big payday, and honestly, with his options likely dwindling with a second-straight decent-but-not-great season under his belt, the Devils actually make sense as a suitor. They have money, his demands are likely going down, and he always spoke highly of the Devils organization. Yes, it’s going to be a different organization if he decides to return, but he still knows a lot about this team.
This isn’t to say the Devils shouldn’t go after Hall. They absolutely should see what Hall wants this offseason. However, if they were going to sign him after 2018, they were likely going to give him Artemi Panarin money minimum ($11.6 million per season). If he decided to re-sign with the Devils in the offseason, he’d at least get $9.5 million, or somewhere in that range.
Now? Is he worth more than what Jeff Skinner got? That contract seems immediately regrettable, so he might be lucky to get that. Plus, with the Coronavirus pandemic possibly canceling the season, we could see the salary cap freeze where it’s at, which means the Devils would be one of just a few teams with space. The only teams expected to have more cap space than the Devils are the Ottawa Senators, the Detroit Red Wings and the Buffalo Sabres. The Sabres have four forwards under contract next season, and one of them is Kyle Okposo. Plus, the Wings and Senators aren’t looking for a Hall-type player in their development timeline.
If Hall comes in asking for $8 million, knowing everything that’s going against him (two mediocre seasons and a flailing salary cap), then it’s worth at least considering. Still, going a full seven seasons might be a deal breaker. Hall’s 2017-18 season was magical, but maybe the hope he could do it again has disappeared.