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Could the Coyotes Pursue Taylor Hall?

December 5, 2019, 4:49 PM ET [26 Comments]
James Tanner
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The Coyotes beat the Blue Jackets on Tuesday by a score of 4-2.

The win moved the Coyotes to within a point of the Oilers, for first in the Pacific. They also have a game in hand.

For the Coyotes this is a great situation, one entirely contributable to their goalies.

Tuesday's game against Columbus was the first time in over a month the Coyotes scored over four goals in a game that didn't go to a shoot-out.

That's embarrassing, and it's a strong indication that the Coyotes could be in trouble if (when?) their insanely good goaltending regresses.

Last year Darcy Kuemper was equally good, and he had arguably the best season that a goalie has ever had for a team that missed the playoffs.

The reality is that in NHL history, every single other time a goalie played that well, he dragged his team to the Playoffs.

The Coyotes couldn't score. On a four game road trip near the end of the year, they blew their playoff chances by failing to win a single game and scoring just four goals in four games.

The fact that in the last two games of that trip, the Coyotes allowed 3 goals and still didn't win a game is the #1 reason they missed the playoffs, which they only did by four points.

It's clear that if the Coyotes are going to be a factor this year then they've got to add a scorer.

Phil Kessel hasn't done anything.

Now, Kessel is a streaky player, and he's getting extremely unlucky, but he's not scoring at the rate the Coyotes need him to.

But even if he was, that probably isn't enough.

The Coyotes need to add an offensive player.

If they were to add a player like Hall and then Kessel took off, suddenly they'd be a whole hell of a lot scarier of a team.

The things is though, the Coyotes are lacking in cap space.

If they could create space, and if they'd be willing to move some combo of last year's first, Barrett Hayton, Clayton Keller and this year's first, maybe they could get Hall or a reasonable facsimile.

If they don't, then they're just wasting everyone's time.

They aren't going to get goaltending like this forever, so they might as well go for it.
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