Taylor Hall’s tenure in Chicago hasn’t gone as planned.
After missing almost all of last season with a knee injury, Hall’s early struggles this season have led to him being a healthy scratch in Chicago’s game against the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday.
When the Blackhawks traded for the former Oiler in the summer of 2023, he seemed like the perfect linemate for their young franchise player, Connor Bedard. Who better than a fellow first-overall pick with a Hart Trophy on his shelf to show the young superstar the ropes in the NHL?
But that excitement was tempered almost immediately when he tore his ACL just 10 games into 2023-24, requiring surgery that ended his season.
The hope was that Hall would return at full strength to join a Blackhawks team bolstered by the additions of Tyler Bertuzzi and Teuvo Teravainen as they would slowly start to power out of their rebuild.
But Hall has contributed just two goals and six points in 17 games this season as the Blackhawks sit tied for last place in the NHL. Worse yet, he’s not even playing on a line with Connor Bedard; he’s spent most of his season next to Bertuzzi and Philipp Kurashev on a line that’s been outscored 4-1 in 86 minutes together.
Now, after a shocking scratch, it’s clear that someone with the Blackhawks, be it head coach Luke Richardson or general manager Kyle Davidson, isn’t happy with Hall’s performance. This has been a common theme in Chicago — they just waived another former Oiler, Andreas Athanasiou, after his own slow start.
So where do they go from here?
Hall is in the final season of a four-year contract with a $6 million cap hit that he signed with Boston in 2021. With the Blackhawks still in the middle of a rebuild, there have already been whispers that Hall is on the trading block.
Despite the recent scratch and the lack of production, Hall can still be a useful contributor to a contender. His expected goals share of 44.7% isn’t anything to write home about, but it’s better than the 43.2% the Blackhawks generate when he’s not on the ice (per MoneyPuck).
Taylor Hall scratched, production is bad (on pace for 29 points). Washed?
Doesn’t look that way in AllThreeZones’ early season tracking data (14 out of 17 CHI games tracked). On-ice shooting percentage is low, PP has been an issue. pic.twitter.com/9bb4qYv2ll
— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) November 17, 2024
We’ve also seen Hall reinvigorated by a trade from a cellar-dweller to a contender before. He of course won the Hart Trophy with New Jersey in 2017-18 just two years after being traded away from the moribund Oilers, and had a brief renaissance after being traded from Buffalo to Boston in 2020-21.
Whoever trades for Hall will surely need Chicago to retain some salary to bring his cap hit down, but the 33-year-old winger can still provide valuable secondary scoring in the right situation. Unfortunately, it’s looking likely that Chicago is not the right situation.
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