Trade rumors have surrounded Taylor Hall since the 2010 first-overall pick grew into his prime on a bad Oilers team in the mid-2010s. One free agency and now three trades later, and Hall is on another basement-dweller after the Boston Bruins, fresh off a record-setting regular season, dealt him along with the rights to veteran Nick Foligno to the Chicago Blackhawks for young defenders Ian Mitchell and Alec Regula.
Hall’s tenure in Boston is now over after 158 regular season games and 25 in the postseason. The Bruins were a playoff team in all three runs with Hall, and while his production was lacking in the first two seasons, you could not say the same about Boston’s seven-game loss against Florida this year, as Hall scored five times, adding three assists. In regular season play, he scored 44 goals with 67 assists, for an 82-game average of 23 goals and 35 assists. While compared to the disaster that Hall was in Buffalo (two goals, 19 points in 37 games), those numbers are outstanding, he played at a 72-point pace prior to becoming a Bruin. Given that he was mostly a second-line player in Boston, his expendability grew as the Bruins fell into salary cap troubles. What likely killed Hall’s chances of staying, aside from his $6 million cap hit, was the acquisition of Tyler Bertuzzi at the trade deadline from Detroit. While Bertuzzi is a pending free agent, he had a strong postseason of his own, and was seemingly born to play the tough style of ‘Bruins hockey’.
Foligno was also a former top-line player elsewhere, but he truly struggled in Boston. His slide with the Bruins was unlike Hall’s dip in production, as Foligno scored just 12 goals in 124 games, plus just one more in 13 playoff appearances. He was all but guaranteed to leave as a free agent this offseason. In return, Boston gets two restricted free agents with NHL experience under the age of 25. At best, Mitchell and Regula can replace whoever becomes a salary cap casualty on the backend, likely either Mike Reilly or Derek Forbort, both veterans with one more year left under contract at a $3 million cap hit. However, both are owed more than $3 million in real money.
Since neither defender has a high-end ceiling, the Blackhawks are delighted to get Hall at a low price. The ultimate goal for Chicago this offseason is to surround incoming first overall pick Connor Bedard with as much talent as possible, and Hall is about as easy of a first-line winger to get at the moment. The Blackhawks are still well under the salary cap floor, by just under $10 million, even after adding Hall’s cap hit. That means that there is room for a lot of improvement in the coming months, although the odds are against them being a good team in 2023-24. Hall is under contract for two more seasons, and could snatch the team a good draft pick at the trade deadline in one of the next two seasons. He was at a career-low in Buffalo, and the Sabres still managed to acquire a second-round pick and forward Anders Bjork for Hall back in 2020-21. There’s no guarantee that they can convince Foligno to sign with the team, but if they do, he is a bottom-six winger with captain experience. At the age of 35, he’ll likely get a one-year contract, which would mean a mid-round selection for him at the trade deadline early next year.
CarterHud 