Rumor: Taylor Hall to go “cup chasing” in free agency.

Hall the final piece of the puzzle?

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 3 years ago
Rumor: Taylor Hall to go “cup chasing” in free agency.
NHL.com

Had the National Hockey League's regular season not come to a grinding halt we likely would be discussing the future of former NHL MVP Taylor Hall right now. The former first overall selection of the Edmonton Oilers has bounced around quite a bit already in his young NHL career and there have been legitimate questions about where Hall will go once his contract expires at the end of the season ever since it became clear that the New Jersey Devils would not retain his services.

In spite of Hall's undeniable talent on the ice he has never achieved the team success that so many young players dream of growing up, this in spite of the fact that he was considered the league's best player for at least a single season. It is for this reason that many believed we would have seen Hall hit the open market on July 1st as a free agent, a situation that would finally allow Hall to stop bouncing from one struggling franchise to another and choose his own path forward for the first time in his career. This is still the road that I believe Hall will travel down whenever he does officially become a free agent at the end of this delayed season, and that leaves the question of where Hall will choose to go?

Recently TSN analyst Craig Button shared his thoughts on the situation and suggested that Hall could follow in the footsteps of former NHL great Marian Hossa and play mercenary in an attempt to hunt down a Stanley Cup ring. 

"The Colorado Avalanche," said Button as per TSN. "Go Cup chasing. Why do I say that? Do what Marian Hossa did in the summer of 2008. He signed a one year deal with the Detroit Red Wings and although they lost in the Stanley Cup Final it really established Marian Hossa as a key player on an important team."

Although this may sound like a wild gamble being proposed by Button it is anything but. This will likely be a bad year to be a free agent given the shortened season and the stagnant salary cap that will produce, leaving teams with little money and space to make big time free agent signings. A one year deal would allow Hall to potentially taste some level of success while also establishing his value as one of the top forwards in the NHL after two relatively mediocre years following his MVP season.

Hall would join the likes of Gabriel Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnonVladislav Namestikov and rookie Cale Makar and there's no doubt I would tune in to see that.

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