Quote:
Originally Posted by N-E-B
There are some truly awful takes on Taylor Hall in here and I suspect a large chunk of that is people building up biases during his time in Edmonton in an effort to discredit his offensive upside.
No, he’s not winning a Selke any time soon but his offensive upside more than makes up for that. Wouldn’t trade Dube for Hall 1 for 1? Give me a break. That’s the kind of crap other teams fans put in their own ATL’s and laugh at.
Hall is elite and saying you wouldn’t want him here is nothing short of foolish. I’ve seen a lot more good than bad from Hall in his career.
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I wouldn’t trade Jankowski for Hall one for one. (Well maybe for *1.) You know why? Because Hall is currently coming off a $6 million dollar contract. He’s going to get $8.5 to maybe high $9 million from someone. Give him a deal in that range and we’re on our way to being Leafs west. Too much cap tied up in offensive style top 6 players and little else to round out the roster.
If Backlund is kept around we need to upgrade #1 or #2 center at some point to put him where he’s best suited. At #3. The only current way around that is Lindholm maintaining the #1C and either relying on one of Tkachuk/Gaudreau holding fort at an off wing. Frolik’s position will need to be filled, and we aren’t certain that prospect youth will be the answer nor consistently reliable on a cup contending team. We need a #4 center and somewhere to relocate Jankowski to. Brodie and Hamonic either need extensions (higher AAV) or UFA replacements (we know how that usually goes). Rittich will get a raise in a couple years. Wildcard is Gio’s cap coming off the books giving some room at that time. Does Hall at #2 LW for 8-10 million restrict us in shoring up other areas of need. I think so but we’ll see what Treliving can achieve.
*1 I’d trade Jankowski for Hall one for one with the intention of letting Hall walk at the end of the year.