Quote:
Originally Posted by SofaProfessor
The issue with this trade is if Larsson is the best return for Hall. Yes, we laugh when Hall makes a leisurely skate to the bench when he should be backchecking but the guy can put up points. He's proven that in his career. He was an all-star because of his ability to score. When it comes to offensive production, he is one of the top wingers in the league. Is a defenceman with almost no offensive upside the right return for that kind of scoring? I don't think so. A lot of people feel the same way, obviously.
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Look, I think even Chiarelli would tell you he "lost" the trade value-wise.
But Larsson is a good fit. The Oil have been dying for somebody who can feed their speedy forwards in transition on the stretch, well in my opinion Adam Larsson can do that better than anyone on their roster. This has ramifactions for a guy like McDavid not needing to curl back to get the puck deep. What they got wasn't their Paul Coffey, but they got a guy who makes their team function more as a team, not a group of forwards frustrated with their D.
Right now I look at the top defensemen on the Oilers - Larsson, Klefbom, Davidson, Sejera - and no I don't see a group that's competing with the likes of Burns/Vlasic/Braun/Martin, Brodie/Giordano/Hamilton, Subban/Josi/Ellis/Ekholm, Letang/Dumoulin/Daley/Maatta, Keith/Hjalmarsson/Seabrook or groups like that. But I see a group that finally transition the puck and play with some pace.
They're still a team that needs its forwards to carry the load. But I also think that they've got some heavy-playing forwards. They've got goaltending. They've got D. I don't think the Oilers are by any means a contender but I think they've got a better balance as a team than they did two years ago and they should expect to be outside of the bottom ten next year. And I think they've still got some deals to swing WRT the likes of Eberle and Yakupov.