5 thoughts after Bruins pull off deadline steal for Taylor Hall

Author Ty Anderson

April 12th, 2021 4:49 AM

Bruins general manager Don Sweeney has made his big move.

After acquiring defenseman Mike Reilly from the Senators late Sunday night, Sweeney swung for the fences with a move for the Sabres’ Taylor Hall and Curtis Lazar in exchange for forward Anders Bjork and a second-round pick.

Hall comes to the Bruins in the midst of what’s been a truly miserable season in Buffalo (in every way), with two goals and 19 points in 37 games for the league-worst Sabres. Hall’s also shooting a career-worst 2.3 percent, and his minus-21 rating is also the worst mark of his career, though it’s obvious that the Sabres have offered little help in either regard.

Lazar, meanwhile, is a bottom-six forward with a bit of pop, with five goals and nine points through 33 games. Lazar, a 2013 first-round pick (No. 17 overall), comes to the B’s with term, too, as he’s signed through the 2021-22 season at a highly-affordable $800,000 cap hit.

From Boston’s view, Bjork leaves the Bruins having totaled just 16 goals and 39 points in 138 games over four seasons, along with just one assist in 10 playoff games (all in 2020).

Here’s five thoughts on the trade while we wait for it to become officially official…

• Bruins weren’t crushed by deadline prices

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  Given the Sabres' initial ask and hopes for a Hall trade, I figured this one would go down to the wire.
  
  It's been just a complete disaster of a year (decade?) for the Sabres, and general manager Kevyn Adams had yet to salvage what he could on the deadline market; Eric Staal was shipped to Montreal for a third- and fifth-round pick. Brandon Montour was sent to Florida for a third-round pick. And Jack Eichel is out of action and thus not on the block, while Kyle Okposo and Jeff Skinner are straight-up trapped in Buffalo with two of the worst contracts in all of hockey.
  
  It just felt that the Sabres were going to hold out for a high-end return on their most valuable chip (Hall) until they had no other option than to come down and take what was considered the best offer at 2:59 p.m on Monday afternoon.
  
  It didn't help that the weekend started with David Savard moved to Tampa Bay for a first-round pick, and continued Sunday's move that saw Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno moved from Columbus to the Maple Leafs for a first-round pick. Those deals (and specifically the Foligno deal) made it seem like the Sabres' hopes of landing a first-round pick or top prospect for Hall weren't as farfetched as we originally thought.
  
  So, to move a bottom six winger and a late second-round pick for Hall and a bottom-six forward with more affordable term than the one you're ditching? Man, that almost feels like robbery. Strike that, it is.

• Taylor Hall must have had an interest in (finally) coming to Boston

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  And make no mistake about it, Hall and the Bruins was a marriage 11 years in the making. From the 2010 NHL Draft, where the Bruins and Hall were both left hoping that the Oilers took Tyler Seguin with the No. 1 overall pick to let the goal-scoring wing slide down to them (and to their top line) with the No. 2 overall pick to even last summer, the Bruins and Hall have always been linked together in some fashion. My understanding is that Hall had a definite interest in the Bruins this offseason, too, but the logjam both in terms of roster and cap space made it tough to make something work early on, and an $8 million offer to play with Eichel for a year and hit (a bigger) open market in 2021 was too good to pass up.
  
  Hall's one-year gamble with the Sabres also came with a no-movement clause, which gave the 29-year-old some say in where he wanted to go. Given his past interest in Boston, both in his draft year and before the 2021 season began, it's not hard to imagine him trying to nudge Buffalo in a certain direction and leaving them to figure out the best offer available.
  
  Hall's knowledge and interest in Boston certainly goes beyond his draft year visit and subsequent road trips to The Hub, too, you'd think. Formerly represented by Bobby Orr, Hall's current agency (Quartexx Management) also reps Bruins captain Patrice Bergeron, and his agent Darren Ferris is also the agent for Bruins top prospect Jack Studnicka. If he needed more information on the potential fit in Boston, there was no doubt that he could've gotten it from his camp.

• Hall addresses Bruins’ needs beyond obvious

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  The Bruins are a team in desperate need of some high-end skill in their middle-six forward group, and Hall has that and then some. I mean, is there any doubt that he's now the team's third-most skilled winger behind Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak? That was a role previously occupied by Jake DeBrusk, and it's appeared that may be too big of an ask for him if this team is going to go where it needs to win a Stanley Cup, especially on David Krejci's line.
  
  Maybe Hall's not the shooter he once was — Hall has shot just 6.7 percent (29 goals on 433 shots) since 2018 after starting his career with a 10.9 shooting percentage (191 goals on 1,757) shots from 2010 through 2017-18 — but he can still create.
  
  Among the group of 121 forwards with at least 500 five-on-five minutes in 2021, Hall ranks 32nd in individual high-danger chances, and 50th individual scoring chances. Hall also ranks 23rd in individual high-danger chances per 60, at 4.23, which is actually more than names such as Connor McDavid, Alex Ovechkin, and Brayden Point. The biggest difference between Hall and those players, of course, is the actual, tangible production. And that's been an obvious issue for Hall, and he has looked straight-up disengaged or beaten down by the Sabres' woes this season. But the Bruins are clearly hoping that getting Hall out of the Buffalo malaise and into the fire of a win-now Boston room will bring him back to life.
  
  (Given the aforementioned price, that's not the worst gamble they could make.)
  
  Another analytic-based boost that Hall's addition brings to the Boston mix? Chances off the rush.
  
  Hall's versatility certainly gives the Bruins some stronger lineup options, too. They could put him with Krejci and David Pastrnak on the second line. Or they could reunite Pastrnak with Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand and have Hall skate with Krejci and Craig Smith, dropping Jake DeBrusk and Nick Ritchie down to the third line. No matter the move and juggling, there's just a lot more pop and depth in the B's lineup than there was before this trade, as confirmed by Karson Kuhlman once again promoted to a role that came with second-line minutes in a Sunday night beatdown from the Capitals.
• A plea to pump the brakes about the ‘bad teammate’ narrative surrounding Hall

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  There's really no shortage of hot takes when it comes to Hall. And I gotta admit, some of them seem a little over the top.
  
  Rather than delve into the idea that Hall is a 'coach killer' let's instead acknowledge the following...
  
  

  • He went to an absolute mess of a franchise when the Oilers selected him. By the time the new leadership regime came in on and off the ice, the bad habits were already engrained. (Oh, and he was such a bad fit in Edmonton that the Oil were reportedly among those interested in acquiring Hall this deadline. Who wants another bite of a bad apple?)
  • When Hall was deemed to no longer be a fit for what the Oilers were trying to accomplish (they still haven't, by the way), they shipped him to New Jersey, where he won a Hart Trophy and was named an alternate captain. I'm not sure teams are racing to give leadership positions to bad teammates flaming out in their second NHL city.
  • The Devils' decision to move on from Hall, meanwhile, came as a result of their status as an obvious non-playoff club and with the franchise looking to accelerate their rebuild with a haul for a pending free agent. (If this is what makes a player a bad teammate, every single rental player is a bad teammate.)
  • Hall then landed with the Coyotes via trade, a team that struggles to pay both its players and the arena they call home, and moved on after a COVID-interrupted season left Arizona smoked in the summer restart in Edmonton.
  • The Buffalo Sabres. That's all. That's the point.

  
  
  Hall may have his own 'problems,' but he's never been in a situation like the one he's walking into with the Bruins.
  
  That's just a fact.

• The writing was on the wall for Anders Bjork

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  When you're under 25 and in your fourth NHL season, it's never good to find yourself scratched for five games in a row leading up to the NHL trade deadline. After the third one, I'd probably consider reaching out to my property manager and letting them know that I may be breaking my lease sooner than anticipated, 'cause you're not long for your current city.
  
  And much like it was for Danton Heinen in 2020, that turned out to be the case for Bruins winger Anders Bjork, too, with the 24-year-old the lone NHL body sent to Buffalo in return for Hall and Lazar.
  
  Bjork was always a fascinating case during his time in Boston.
  
  Everybody always wanted Bjork to get this or that, but he failed to seize that opportunity almost every single time. The Bruins repeatedly tried giving him top-six opportunities, but he never stuck — whether that was because of bad penalties, a failure to shoot at an effective clip, or be noticeable in almost any realm was a simple spin of the wheel — and he really only thrived in a fourth-line role. That's fair, that's fine. But it wasn't considered a real need for this team. (In fact, bottom-six players with little finish is one of the only things this team has a true surplus of in 2021.) Could Bjork have been afford a longer leash from the coaching staff? At times, definitely. (He was actually playing some great, aggressive hockey leading up to his trade-related scratches.) But at a certain point, you need to do something with those opportunities and force the staff's hand. It just never felt like Bjork found that extra gear over the last two seasons.

Ty Anderson is a writer and columnist for 985TheSportsHub.com. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Beasley Media Group, or any subsidiaries. Yell at him on Twitter: @_TyAnderson.

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Author Ty Anderson

Category:

• Bruins
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• Ty Anderson

Tags:

2021 NHL Trade Deadline,anders bjork,boston bruins,Taylor Hall