The rise and fall of Taylor Hall: what happened to the former Devils Hart Trophy winner?

Taylor Hall as a player is one of the most intriguing names in recent history. Since the NHL Lockout, when looking at players who have won the Hart Trophy, just about every one of them are surefire Hall of Famers. Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, Connor McDavid, Nikita Kucherov, Carey Price, and Joe Thornton are just some of the names that come to mind. However, there are two names that really stand out. Taylor Hall and Corey Perry are the two names that need more of a conversation for the Hall, and honestly, the way things have gone since Hall won his MVP, he’s probably not even in the conversation. 

Hall looked like he was going to pull the Devils out of their rebuild all by himself. There was very little around him in terms of established talent. Pavel Zacha, Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt, Will Butcher, and a few others had potential, but they were all incredibly young. They did have Cory Schneider in net, but Hall and Schneider never played together at their best, so this was another issue the Devils had to address. 

Hall very much deserved his MVP in 2018. Nobody was more valuable in the NHL that season. The Devils might have won the lottery for the second year in a row. Instead, the Devils had an incredible run where they made the playoffs for the first time in six years, breaking a terrible streak of losing. 

The Devils were incredibly lucky that Taylor Hall still had two more seasons left on his contract when Hall had his MVP season. There was talk that he could be seeing eight figures as an average annual value at the time. For those looking for the math, if the Devils signed Hall to an eight-year deal for $80 million, the contract would still have either two or three years left on it at this point (depending on if it was a new contract or an extension on a final year). 

Taylor Hall hits rock bottom after benching in Chicago. It all started when things got sour in New Jersey.

Knowing how bad things have been for Hall since he left the Devils, that might be a “Jeff Skinner-like” contract if it was ever signed. 

Let’s talk about what Hall has been up to since he scored 93 points in 2017-18. He was actually good the next season, putting up 37 points in 33 games. We forget that because he was chronically injured, but when he was on the ice, he was contributing. He was on a 92-point pace. 

In the 2019-20 season, in what would be Hall’s contract year, it was a mess. Hall was not the same player coming off his knee injury. He seemed tentative and didn’t want to shoot the puck. He was still facilitating offense, putting up 19 assists in 30 games, but he wasn’t scored (six goals). There was some criticism, and Hall made a huge mistake by taunting his own fans as trade rumors circled the team, as it seemed like it was another lost season. 

The Devils eventually traded Hall to the Arizona Coyotes, getting a package that included the pick that was used on Dawson Mercer and Kevin Bahl as a prospect. It will go down as the best trade of the Ray Shero era, no matter how much we hated the deal at the time. 

With Arizona, Hall didn’t do much. He had 27 points in 35 games, and he added six points in nine playoff games. It was the strange 2020 playoffs in the bubble, but the Coyotes were able to get past Hall’s former head coach in John Hynes and the Nashville Predators. 

The next year, Hall signed a one-year deal with the Buffalo Sabes, which tickled many Devils fans. He was expecting a huge deal, but he chose to sign for $8 million to be with the Sabres, a place where he struggled to perform. He had 19 points in 37 games before he was traded to the Boston Bruins. His two goals made it seem like the 29-year-old had lost it completely. 

With the Bruins after the trade, Hall was a little better. He scored eight goals in 16 games before the postseason, and he added five points in 11 playoff games. The Bruins signed Hall to a four-year deal after that season, seemingly putting Hall in the place where he felt he belonged. Now, he could compete for the long term. 

Hall played two more seasons with the Bruins before he was traded to the Chicago Blackhawks. The Hawks were completely rebuilding, but they wanted to put some veterans around superstar Connor Bedard. They added other vets who were in the twilight of their careers, like Jason Dickinson, Andreas Athanasiou, and Nick Foligno. 

Hall was expected to be stapled to Bedard’s wing, giving him someone talented to play off of. It didn’t work out that way. As of this writing, Hall and Bedard have played less than 100 minutes of 5v5 play together. Bedard has played 1,200 minutes without Hall. 

Things haven’t worked out as Hall hoped, but they hit rock bottom on Saturday night. The Blackhawks announced that Hall would be a healthy scratch. This is a team with not much to play for, and a Hall trade would really help add more assets (he’s on the last year of his deal again). Yet, they felt it best to bench him. 

How did Hall fall this far? His fall from grace isn’t completely dissimilar as some other stars, but it’s wildly different from other MVPs. Some other stars who had similar drops in production include Phil Kessel and Marian Gaborik. It shows the impact of these types of players when they lose a step.

And it’s as simple as that. Hall lost a step, both due to age and injury. He doesn’t have the zip on his acceleration that he once did, and that’s really impacted his play. NHL Edge has been tracking data since 2021-22. That season, Hall had close to three 20+ speed bursts per game. This season, it’s under two per game. 

His shot has also lost a little zip, but not much. Honestly, Hall’s downfall has everything to do with his roster decisions. He continues to go to places where his skillset doesn’t thrive. The Sabres decision was a disaster when he probably had a few long-term contracts on the table. The Bruins decision felt like the right one, but it was pretty bad for his personal legacy. Moving to Chicago wasn’t his decision, but going there and not playing with Bedard was another disaster. 

Hall still has a chance to have a good few years. However, he needs to find the perfect connection. There are a few teams that make sense, but we can’t go by Hall’s track record. After a few knee injuries and this healthy scratch, teams might be tentative about jumping on Hall. However, teams will give him a shot. We might be writing the “rise and fall and rise again of Taylor Hall” in just a few years. 

For now, the Hall situation is dreadful, and the Devils were the pivot point of his career. His Oilers career wasn’t great, but he found his footing in New Jersey. Then, for a myriad of reasons, he lost it again. He never found a place that accepted him like Jersey did, but that acceptance is fleeting here. It isn’t earned and then set in stone. We’ll see what’s next for Hall, but it seems like this is a low point of what could be many more low points for the rest of his career.