Should the Anaheim Ducks get in on the Taylor Hall Sweepstakes?
The Anaheim Ducks are in desperate need of help. Could free-agent Taylor Hall be a solution to their offensive woes?
It’s been a very long time since the Anaheim Ducks have been in the mix for one of the premium free-agents on offer. Typically speaking, Bob Murray elects to sit back and do his work after the big-name free-agents have chosen their destinations. He may consider it due to prudence and not willing to overpay and hamstring his teams, though one wonders if he is completely immune to overpaying in the silly season.
The Clayton Stoner contract was one such contract. The signing of a 3rd pairing defenceman who had played against weaker competition than any of his teammates that season, to a 4-year, 13 million dollar contract, was seen as confusing by most pundits. The deal was so good in fact, that Stoner himself, said that he jumped on it without even considering other offers.
“There were quite a few teams interested, but not all had time to make offers because I thought this deal was good for everybody. Florida was one team, and so were Calgary, Arizona, Colorado and Montreal. With a lot of those teams we didn’t go down that route to make an offer because, by the time free agency opened, I already had my mind made up. I haven’t even spoken with my agent about who he talked to, or what kind of offers came in. As of 11:05, my mind was made up and the deal was done. It was done very quickly.” –Clayton Stoner
Nonetheless, this is all in the past. What is pertinent to today, is that the Anaheim Ducks are looking to make some changes to a roster that is incredibly light on for high-end offensive talent. It just so happens that their Pacific Division rivals, the Arizona Coyotes are up against the salary cap, and are hard up for draft picks, over the next couple of years. It may be that they will be required to move on from one of their recently acquired marquee players. Taylor Hall.
A name that is synonymous with lottery draft picks. Hall, himself being one in the now distant past, as well as having the “luck” to be on some incredibly poor teams throughout his career. However, when healthy Hall is one of the dominant offensive talents in the game, and an absolute lock for a top-6 LW slot on nearly, if not every, team in the league.
The Ducks top LW is Rickard Rakell, who is himself a former 30 goal scorer in the NHL. Those days, however, seem to be somewhat firmly set in the rear vision mirror. Though it can also be said that on his best day, Rakell still didn’t reach the heights of the 2018 Hart Trophy-winning Taylor Hall. It can’t really be underestimated what a boost Hall would do for the Ducks offense.
With that said, is Hall a fit for the Anaheim Ducks as they are currently built?
Are Hall’s Offensive Abilities Enough To Make Bob Murray Look His Way?
Let’s not beat around the bush here. When Taylor Hall is on his game, there are few better in the league. Only two seasons removed from a 39-goal, 93-point, Hart Trophy campaign, Hall has backed it up with a better than a point per game injury-shortened season and one 52-point in a 65-game season split between the New Jersey Devils and the Arizona Coyotes.
Over his 10 year NHL career, Hall has scored at a 0.90 point per game pace, which is a wonderful rate that is comparable to any player in the league. Notably, his scoring rate in the postseason remains at a similar tempo. Though it should be noted that Hall’s postseason record is a very small sample size to date.
Introducing this type of offensive weapon to the Anaheim Ducks list would rejuvenate the scoring, by allowing all the players to shift down a line and ultimately play against weaker competition. Imagine if you will, that Rakell would no longer be tightly checked by the opposition’s best players.
Perhaps under those conditions, he regains some of his scoring touch. Maxime Comtois or Brayden Tracey are then able to come into the team on a third line with far less responsibility placed upon them. For a team that should be looking into the future, finding ways to protect those young players and allow them to flourish should be a strong consideration.
Of course, finding someone of Hall’s ilk could also open up trade talks regarding Rakell himself. It’s hard to imagine a contending team couldn’t find the cap space to include a ~40 point scorer, with 30 goal upside, for the low price of $3.8 million. It would be a tantalizing prospect for a team such as the Edmonton Oilers, who have such big contracts on the books yet yearn to find help for their superstars.
Others would also line up, allowing the Anaheim Ducks to somewhat write their ticket. Could he be part of a package to acquire both of the New Jersey Devil’s mid-1st-round draft picks? 27-year-old scoring forwards on cheap contracts aren’t offered up every day and one can only imagine that there would be some demand for the player’s services.
The jury is out of course, on how he would fit into Ducks Head Coach, Dallas Eakins‘, offensive system. However, Hall did have one incredibly productive season under Eakins in Edmonton. A season in which he scored 80-points in 75-games. Thus it seems that Eakins would be able to find a way to include Hall enough to have him produce.
There’s no team in the league who can’t use a productive Taylor Hall, and the Ducks are certainly no exception.
Yeah But The Downside, Right?
Unfortunately, Hall comes with a laundry list of negatives that may warn the Anaheim Ducks away from looking into the high scoring forward.
Firstly, and perhaps most pertinent, the Ducks are short on the cap space that would likely be required to sign Taylor Hall. Finishing up a deal that was paying him $6 million per season, it can reasonably be expected that Hall will command a raise on this figure. With only ~$2.9 million in predicted cap space following the acquisition of David Backes, the Ducks would need to make some moves to open up space for Hall to fit into.
With many fans hoping for the trades of Adam Henrique, Josh Manson, or Jakob Silfverberg, the ability to accumulate cap space wouldn’t necessarily be tough for the Ducks to achieve. If these trades were considered alongside a trade of Rickard Rakell, the Anaheim Ducks could actually get quite young and cheap in a hurry and accrue a lot of draft capital in a hurry. It seems odd to say, but acquiring Hall to be a top-line scorer could potentially provide a lot of boons for a rebuilding team.
Of course, Hall himself would not likely be sold on joining another rebuild. Like the player himself said, it’s time for him to start winning and participating in playoff hockey more often than not.
“I think honestly it’s probably all winning,” Hall said when asked what was important to him in a free-agent destination. “Any player at this stage in their career that’s had the career that I’ve had — 10 seasons, only making the playoffs twice — that’s really what I’m after. ” -Taylor Hall
It would be a big ask for Murray to persuade a player craving playoff hockey to join a rebuild once again. Particularly in light of the Ducks needing to trade away their talent to fit him in. It isn’t an impossible task, and the Ducks would still have a lot of players coming into their primes, but it would likely be apparent to both parties that the Ducks would not be a cup contender for at least another three seasons.
A three-season wait for contender status may not be the end of the world for Hall given at the end of it he would only be 32 years of age and likely still a relatively productive player. It wouldn’t be out of the question for a current 0.90 point per game player to drop into the 0.60 points per game rate. The issue, and the risk, comes from the Anaheim Ducks side.
Hall is notoriously injury-stricken. In six of his ten seasons, Hall has failed to play in excess of 70 games. Although it is worth noting that three of his past five seasons have hit over that mark and that this past season he played in 65 regular-season games and nine in the postseason. Nonetheless, the biggest predictor of future injury is previous injury, and Hall has a long list of them.
The Ducks have recently been burnt by signing injury-stricken players such as Patrick Eaves, which could make them gun shy moving forward. Of course, the silver lining is that a team that has traded away some of its big names and then loses its marque player to injury is likely going to lose enough games to touch the lottery, which in its own way could help speed up a rebuild.
Though how much this would impact the Ducks at the back end of the likely long-term contract is another matter. For the next three seasons or so, the Ducks wouldn’t mind drafting early. Yet assuming that Hall’s deal would be for the maximum seven years, they would dearly love to move back into the winner’s circle in the last four years of the deal.
If Hall cannot contribute in that time frame, the Anaheim Ducks would be hamstrung with a big contract and unproductive player, just as their new youth would be hitting their straps. Certainly, some of the contracts would be mitigated by young players coming in on the ELC’s but eventually, it would become difficult to hide and the Ducks would be required to buy it out or to trade it to another team for a likely hefty cost. Again, not an impossible task, but one to consider.
Perhaps the last variable to consider is the Ducks head coach. In his time with Edmonton, he was accused of ripping apart the dressing room. Hall would have been a part of that and may not wish to revisit those memories of his own choice. Whether these allegations have truth to them is debatable for us mere mortals looking in from the outside, however, Hall’s final year under Eakins was a shocker. Eakins himself was let go. While sports are typically transient and many players and coaches cross paths time and again, the history between player and coach may prove to be a difficult hurdle to leap over.
Weighing The Pro’s & Con’s
In the end, there is probably enough in the red to keep the Ducks away from putting in a serious bid for Hall’s services. In almost 90% of scenarios, this would be in the best interests of the Anaheim Ducks as well. However, for a team whos reasons for having fans attend is skinny going on anorexic, Hall provides a big, fat, ball of excitement that drags fans to games and up and out of their seats. Trevor Zegras might be that player for them down the line, though that could be many years away.
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The Ducks need fans to attend their games in a bad way, and it just may be that the acquiring Hall in free agency is their current best option. He could provide an outlet for the Ducks to trade away some of the “top end” players for high-level draft selection, and at the same time thrill the fans and keep them coming until the draft picks have turned into NHL talent in their own rights.
Should the Ducks not go down that rebuilding path and attempt to use Hall as a piece to push into the postseason, they would still need to cut salary, however, it would be hard to argue that Hall isn’t a forward line upgrade on any players they may consider trading out in order to accommodate him. Assuming Hall’s recent run of relatively good health continues, his productivity could be enough to push the Ducks into the playoffs, over what would be a then-weakened Arizona team.
However, despite Hall creating options for the Ducks, the risks are substantial and the Anaheim team under Bob Murray’s stewardship has been notoriously risk-averse. Still, sometimes a “good” plan throw together hastily, is often better than a “perfect” plan delayed.
If the Anaheim Ducks want to become a relevant hockey team again, then they need to make some splashes. They may be made by selling the farm and making trades to start a full one rebuild. Or they may be made, by signing the biggest name in this year’s free agency class and seeing the chips fall where they may.
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