The Bruins need offensive help. Taylor Hall is by all accounts on the trading block. Normally, some simple deductive reasoning would lead you to conclude that the Bruins should be interested in acquiring Hall -- the 2010 No. 1 overall pick, 2018 Hart Trophy winner and six-time 20-goal scorer.
The Bruins were also reportedly interested in signing Hall this past offseason, so there’s already a link to be made there.
However, the Taylor Hall of right now is not the slam-dunk offensive upgrade he once was. The Hall of 2021 is one who has two goals in 34 games for the Sabres this season.
The 29-year-old wing, who is playing on a one-year deal, has been trending downwards for several years now. Following his excellent 39-goal, 93-point MVP season with the Devils in 2017-18, Hall dropped to 11 goals and 37 points in an injury-plagued, 33-game 2018-19 season; then 16 goals and 52 points in 65 games split between the Devils and Coyotes last year; and now the even more dramatic dropoff this year.
It should be noted that Hall does have 16 assists, and his 11 even-strength assists would be tied for the most on the Bruins, so it’s not like he’s doing absolutely nothing offensively.
A deeper dive into the analytics tells us he is still good at creating scoring chances, too. As this Sportlogiq article for Sportsnet lays out, he is still very good at driving possession through controlled zone exits and zone entries. He was still elite at generating scoring chances off the rush last season, although he’s dropped off in that respect this season.
Hall has had more breakaways than any other player since the start of last season. His 69 individual scoring chances, 35 individual high-danger chances and 5.83 expected goals at five-on-five this season (per Natural Stat Trick) are all more than any Bruin.
But the Bruins need goals. And while Hall might be creating chances, he is not scoring goals. Not even on those breakaways (seriously, he hasn’t scored on any of those breakaways over the last year-plus).
That’s the gamble Don Sweeney and other general managers must decide if they’re willing to take. Do they believe bad luck is a big factor in Hall’s lack of goals? Do they think a better situation might get him going? Or do they think he is just not a good finisher anymore?
Whether that gamble is worth taking could very well come down to how much it costs to acquire him. TSN’s Pierre LeBrun recently reported the Sabres are still asking for a first-round pick. Just about every proposal in a recent exercise in The Athletic still included a first-round pick. Sportsnet threw out a rather ridiculous proposal that had the Bruins sending Jack Studnicka, Jake DeBrusk AND a first-round pick to Buffalo for Hall.
Sweeney should be fired on the spot if he offers anything close to that latter proposal. And despite what the Sabres are floating out there in the media, it seems increasingly unlikely they’ll get a first-round pick or a top prospect unless Hall really catches fire in these last two weeks before the trade deadline.
If the Bruins end up with an opportunity to get Hall for just a second-round pick or just a second-tier prospect, then sure, it’s a chance worth taking, especially if they still make another move to upgrade their forward corps.
But Sweeney and the Bruins can’t afford to make Hall their one big move. He’s not reliable enough at this point to expect him to solve their offensive woes, and he’s certainly not reliable enough to be worth top assets.