The way the Oilers stank out the place on Saturday left a bitter taste in everyone’s mouth. There’s no question that everyone is sick of those kinds of performances. However, the most recent trend from Oiler fans has been to turn all the frustration towards the star young players, and Taylor Hall in particular is taking the most heat.
It’s especially odd given how Hall lead the Oilers with 6 shots and carried possession during that particular game. Compared to the way Eberle blew his assignments and was otherwise incredibly ineffectual, I would have assumed 14 would be the one being criticized, but that isn’t the case.
The complaints about Taylor Hall are misguided at best. I don’t care about his body language on the bench when his team is embarrassing themselves on National TV. He’s not supposed to be happy when he’s down by 5 against the Flames. This isn’t community league sport that’s had the pressure and competitiveness wiped away by parents too afraid to let precious Timothy’s feelings get hurt. In the NHL teams keep score. Players like Taylor Hall don’t have to sit on the bench smiling like idiots when their teammates are playing like pathetic slugs.
And honestly, I don’t care what his facial expressions are like when his shift is over as long as he’s busting his tail off during the shift. With Taylor Hall, the amount of people who would prefer style over the substance he provides is unreal. I’ve had people suggest to me that he’s playing his way off of the Oilers!
Only in Taylor Hall’s dreams does he get to leave the Oilers. Frankly, this organization has surrounded him with every available 6th defenseman in the NHL since 2010. They haven’t had an established top pairing defender during that entire time. Not once!
Since Taylor Hall entered the NHL in 2010 he has played with so many questionable blueliners that naming them all would be exhausting both physically and emotionally, but to give a quick indication as to what the Oil have been working with I’ll point this out: Since 2010 the best offensive year any Oiler defender has had was only 33 points. That was Justin Schultz’ 2013-2014 season and it ranks 201st among offensive seasons by NHL defenders since 2010.
The BEST season they ever had was 201st!
So I come back to Taylor Hall, his attitude, and the perception that he’s somehow the problem here. The Edmonton Oilers are lucky to have Taylor Hall and they know it. As per Darren Dreger, Taylor Hall is as close to untouchable as you can get. Frankly the team is lucky that Hall still wants to be an Oiler considering the club has never given him a competitive defense.
Yes. Lucky. And the argument that the Oilers have been terrible with Hall so obviously it’s not working is garbage. Pure garbage. Detroit was horrible with Steve Yzerman for the better part of a decade and they were rewarded for keeping him around. The fact is that Taylor Hall controls possession, scores at an elite level, and was Edmonton’s best player until McDavid arrived.
Taylor Hall is 3rd in the NHL in 5v5 Points per 60 minutes with 2.47 P/60 over the last 4 seasons. He’s 11th in the NHL this season, and that’s with a pretty massive funk in the 2nd half of the season. That is elite level offense five on five.
Blaming Hall for this season, or any Oiler season, is a waste of breath. The truth is we should be angry at Oiler management since Hall became a member of this team for failing to build anything worthwhile on the backend. That’s Lowe, MacT, Tambellini, and even Chiarelli. Nobody has done an adequate job building this team around the supremely talented players they have drafted.
Things can get worse, if Oiler fans don’t remember finishing last year with even fewer Wins and Points in the standings. Failing to recognize that Hall is one of the few players that this team should be thankful it has would be a huge mistake, because the Oilers are losing any trade Hall is a part of.
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