It is the silly season for NHL trade rumours. Everyone is moving and everyone else is being considered based on what the old Twitter box has to say. Last night things went a little off the rails when it came to Oiler trade speculation. Everybody knows that McDavid is the only player that is truly untouchable and apparently that makes Taylor Hall Edmonton’s trade bait.
We’ve seen over the last 48 hours some hare-brained trade proposals from randoms and members of the media alike. They range from plausible to insane. My favourite terrible ones seem to be coming from Jim Matheson these days. The Journal’s tenured reporter was tossing around Hall for Fowler the other day like it wasn’t verifiably insane. Just to be clear, it would be a complete disaster.
Last night the speculation was that the Islanders were discussing the Hamonic deal (that isn’t happening because everything is better now [winks]) again and Hall’s name came up. That sent my phone into a tizzy as reactions were coming in hot. Damn thing was unusable for almost an hour.
If you squint real hard the deal might make sense for the Oilers to some degree. The Oilers have lots of high end players at the forward positions, they need a RHD, the contract for Hamonic is fantastic. Awesome, where do I sign? However, once you stop squinting you see that even if the Islanders were to throw in picks and prospects, at the heart of the deal the Oilers would be giving up one of the very best Left Wingers in the game today for a defender who isn’t that close to being one of the best at his position.
I love me some Hamonic. When the Oilers eventually get him, and I think they will, then I will be happy they crossed off one of their needs from the List of Despair. But Taylor Hall is a plug and play winger who can score at even strength with anyone. The Oilers can build an entire line around Hall just as they will with McDavid. Two players, two offensive lines that can score at elite levels and we arent overly concerned about the other 4 guys needed to fill it all out.
Trading Taylor Hall isn’t something that can’t be done, it’s just something that shouldn’t be done unless the return is significant. And, yes, I mean more significant than Hamonic. If the Oilers arent getting a bonafide number 1 defender then there is no reason to trade away their 2nd best player. I was pleased to see some of the wind come out of the Hall Trade talk this morning.
Gallof is pretty bang on here. Hall is on another level. Over the past four years Hall is 3rd in Points per 60 minutes in the NHL (minimum 3000 minutes) at 2.49 P/60. You’ll find names like Tavares, Kane, Thornton, Kessel, and Kopitar all after him on that list. The only two ahead of him are Benn and Crosby. That’s it.
So the idea of trading this player away without an equally impressive defender coming back is going to be a difficult pill to swallow. He ought to be considered nearly untouchable and it would take a significant payment, scratching all the right itches, to make the Oil think long about moving him. At least that’s the prevailing consensus among Oiler fans not currently employed for more than 30 years at one of Edmonton’s largest media outlets.
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