I don’t think I’ll need a thousand words to tell you why Taylor Hall will not be a Boston Bruin.
Like I talked about a few weeks ago in regards to Hall’s teammate in Edmonton, Jordan Eberle, the Black and Gold are not in a situation where they’d like to deal youthful core pieces, no matter the return. The asking price for a player like Hall, a super-talented left winger that’s recorded 100 goals and 243 points in 271 NHL games, would almost certainly include one of (if not both) Dougie Hamilton and Malcolm Subban. And I can tell you with all certainty that Hamilton is an untouchable, and I can also say with a considerable amount of faith that the B’s are not interested in moving away from Subban at this point in time.
If you wanted to look at the Bruins’ big league roster, the B’s have impact talents, but again, they’re not waiving a no-trade clause for a Boston to Edmonton swap. And enough players on the B’s control their own destiny by way of some sort of a no-movement clause. (That includes popular hypothetical trade chips like a Milan Lucic, Brad Marchand, Loui Eriksson, and Chris Kelly, by the way.)
But Hall is an interesting case. This is the player that the Bruins would have preferred to have landed in the 2010 Draft. Hall, a goal-scoring winger, was considered way more of a natural fit than Tyler Seguin, a natural centerman. But without a deal to make the jump from No. 2 to No. 1, Hall went to Edmonton while Seguin landed in Boston (and jettisoned to Dallas just three years later).
Hall’s also been called ‘uncoachable’ and that he doesn’t care for the defensive side of the game. That’d set off about a dozen red flags for Boston and head coach Claude Julien, and that alone would seem like enough for the Bruins to steer clear of the 23-year-old superstar.
Do the Bruins have the pieces to get a Hall-to-Boston deal done? Of course. But their willingness to move on from a Hamilton, a Subban, or a Lucic is a completely different story, for better or worse. And that’s where the disconnect will come between B’s general manager Peter Chiarelli and the Edmonton braintrust.
For the Oilers to move on from Hall, the return will have to be huge. This is a player you drafted with the No. 1 overall pick in 2010, and moving on from that is more than a hockey move. There’s PR spin involved, and that will surely complicate things. If you can move on from Hall, it’s so that you can get the ‘Face of the Franchise Defenseman’ your organization desperately needs. (Cough, Dougie Hamilton, cough.)
The Bruins wouldn’t do that. Not before seeing how this year wraps up, anyway, I don’t think.
On the ice, the Bruins will kick off a three-game Western Conference road swing with a Tuesday night visit to Bridgestone Arena for a tilt against the Nashville Predators. Three points behind the Central-leading Chicago Blackhawks, the Preds have been one of the league’s best comeback stories in 2014-15, led by a top-line featuring James Neal and Filip Forsberg (and with a motivated Mike Ribeiro at center) along with the game’s best defenseman (Shea Weber) and a healthy Pekka Rinne.
The results are there, too, with a plus-21 goal differential and wins in seven of their last 10.
They’ll be yet another tough challenge for a Boston squad that’s won just three of their last 10 games played, and have won just six of 13 games away from TD Garden this season.
In net, the Bruins give the start to Tuukka Rask. The 27-year-old Rask stopped 29 of 31 shots against in last Saturday’s shootout loss to the Ottawa Senators, and played sensational throughout. (He’s honestly not even close to the reason why the B’s are dropping games left and right.) Rask has struggled on the road this year, though, with three wins and an .879 save percentage in eight road games. He has one win and has stopped 59 of 65 shots against in two career games against the Predators.
Nashville counters with Pekka Rinne. The 6-foot-5 Rinne has 19 wins in 26 games this year, and stopped all but one of 33 shots against in his last start, a 2-0 loss to the San Jose Sharks last Saturday. Rinne is 2-0-1 with a .923 save percentage in three career games against the Black and Gold.
Fun fact: This will be a match-up of the league’s two $7 million goaltenders. That would have been a headline had it not been for Henrik Lundqvist’s new contract up in New York City that comes complete with a heavy $8.5 million cap-hit from now ‘til 2021.