I’m not going to demean you by attempting to justify the Taylor Hall trade. I can’t do it. I won’t do it. Trading Taylor Hall for Adam Larsson is an indefensible move from an indefensible organization. We are held captor by this franchise and have no control over which ditch they drive into this time.
Taylor Hall was the carrot dangled in front of the fans when Darryl Katz went on Edmonton radio in the winter of 2009 and told everyone that he was committed to a total Rebuild. It was Taylor Hall and a big bag of hope that fueled this market for a long time. He was the centerpiece, the focal point of Edmonton’s plans. The Oilers had their elite forward, the thing that was impossible for the club to acquire any other way than trudging through the muck of an NHL season and coming out the other side with a lottery pick.
For his part, Hall was amazing. He stepped onto NHL ice and was immediately pushing the river, as my colleague Lowetide would say. From 18 years old he was ready to compete against men and he was a 5v5 performer. Over the last 4 years, Taylor Hall is 3rd among all NHL forwards with 2.49 Points per 60 minutes (minimum of 1000 minutes). Hall is among the elite of the NHL’s elite. Truly a unique talent and coming from a garbage club we know he can create his offense without help from any defense.
The Oilers signed Hall to a deal averaging 6 million dollars per season over the long term and it seemed things were set for him. He was the best player on a bad team, but only the foolish would have blamed him for Edmonton’s lack of success. After all, this is a team that traded away good defensemen and kept poor ones year over year.
Hall remained Edmonton’s best player until this club bumbled its way to the McDavid lottery win. At that point the Oilers became blessed with not just one, but two players who could drive a line. Edmonton was now capable of playing Taylor Hall and Connor McDavid on separate lines and have each be dangerous in the attacking zone. That’s exactly what they did when McDavid was healthy. The two of them spent a mere 74:50 5v5 together this past season. Two players, two effective lines.
No sane person would give up a gift like that easily. Peter Chiarelli might be new to the Oilers, and he even said that Hall has deeper roots in Edmonton than he does, but it shouldn’t take the 10 consecutive years out of the playoffs and the decade of desperately trying to push the boulder up the hill that came before that to prove quality players like Taylor Hall don’t grow on trees.
Unfortunately, Peter Chiarelli cracked under the pressure of cleaning up the messes made by the men who preceded him in the role of General Manager. Edmonton has been chasing its tail looking for defensemen since Kevin Lowe traded Chris Pronger. Lubomir Visnovsky, Sheldon Souray, Joni Pitkanen, Ryan Whitney, Jeff Petry, Justin Schultz, everything they tried turned to ash in front of their eyes. Most of the time it was self-inflicted from incompetent talent evaluators. Sometimes it was just bad luck or bad ruts.
This particular trade, the trade that saw Hall moved for Larsson, can easily be traced back to the moment MacTavish and Lowe decided Justin Schultz was the keeper and Jeff Petry was expendable. What’s played out since then has been a nightmare for the club. Petry traded away for nothing, Schultz imploding and regressing until he too was traded for nothing. Two young and promising right handed defenders turned into an impossible large hole on the roster in the blink of an eye.
So Peter Chiarelli finds himself in a position of desperation and instead of opting not to make any move at all, he pulls the trigger on what looks to be the worst 1 for 1 deal of the last decade. Luckily for him Montreal made one minutes later that gave him a run for the title. In some strange way that must make him feel a little better. For Oiler fans all that matters is that the team gave away the only reason you had to watch Oiler hockey between 2009 and 2015, and they didn’t get anything close to value.
Adam Larsson is not a bad hockey player, but he isn’t elite. He just isn’t. No matter what Chiarelli and the Oilers organization try to sell us, Larsson is not worth the price that was paid for him. How could he be?
Edmonton is selling its fans a bill of goods today. Chiarelli is saying that he’s delivering a top pairing, puck moving defender who can play 25 minutes a night against top opposition. It’s just half-truths spoken out the side of his mouth.
25 minutes a night? He averaged 22:30 a night this year. In 2014-2015 it was a shave under 21 minutes. 2013-2014 it was 17:47. He’s not a 25 minute a night defender and he has not been one yet on a regular basis over any extended period in his career. He went over 25 minutes just 10 total times last season. Period. Peter Chiarelli calling him a 25 minute guy is correct only by technicality. He would be correct the same way you could call Justin Schultz a 25 minute a night player just because it actually happened a couple times.
Top pairing? Yeah, on a terrible Devils team he was their best right-handed option. He has that distinction on the Oilers too, but then again Fayne was Edmonton’s best right-handed defenseman until this afternoon so it’s not exactly climbing Mount Everest. Over the last two years he’s been playing mostly with Andy Greene on the top pairing. Greene has made a lot of players look good, including Mark Fayne who the Oilers are trying to figure out what to do with at this very moment.
Against top opposition? This one is absolutely true. Larsson is accustomed to facing the toughs with Greene. That duo took on brutal zone starts and against the toughest possible opposition. Larsson and Greene over the past 2 seasons have the lowest percentage of offensive zone starts in the entire NHL. It’s such a vicious grind that it’s the only saving grace for Larsson’s otherwise uninspiring numbers. His circumstances might be so unique that the stats might not be used fairly when compared to other defensemen in the NHL. This is a bet that the Oilers are making.
Adam Larsson is not to blame for what happened today, no more than Reinhart was to blame when Peter Chiarelli botched that trade. The New Jersey Devils got one of the best scorers in the NHL and they got him for a complementary defender who doesn’t provide any offense. They got the reward for the pain and suffering Oiler fans paid through the historically terrible 2009-2010 season that culminated in the club taking Taylor Hall 1st in the Draft.
Peter Chiarelli gave away his 2nd best player, his 2nd best asset and didn’t definitively find a legitimate top pairing player. Larsson isn’t a member of the power play. There’s nothing in his history that suggests he’s an effective puck mover. He isn’t fast. The three years prior to this one he’s spent time in the AHL. He isn’t an established player. If this trade blows up in his face, as it undoubtedly will, then he is the man that traded Hall and Seguin for peanuts. That is his legacy.
I don’t carry water for the Oilers. You won’t see me treat you like sheep. This is a terrible trade that the Oilers just lost and there’s nothing that can change it now. No matter how much the Oilers needed defense, they didn’t have to give their best tradable asset away for Adam Larsson. The team today is worse than it was this morning and that’s including the likelihood of Lucic signing here. The team now has one less asset it can use to find a real top pairing player.
Good luck in New Jersey, Taylor Hall. Devils fans, you are going to love what you just stumbled into today. Oiler fans, I’m sorry. You deserve better.
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