Hall deserves long look from B’s
One-time MVP could provide skilled physicality
The 2019-20 NHL season — long, strange trip that it was — is now over, nearly a full calendar year to the day that it began. The Tampa Bay Lightning are as deserving a champion as you’ll find, one that was the best on paper and one that went out and proved it on the ice, overcoming some key injuries to boot.
Now the Bruins have their measuring stick as they try to reshape their team in this accelerated offseason. The NHL draft, where the trade market has heated up in past years, is being held next week on Oct. 6-7. Two days later, the free agency market opens.
The work that the Bruins have to do, as demonstrated by the Lightning, is clear. They must add some skilled physicality to the lineup up front that will give them three lines that are legitimate threats to score five-on-five. In their five-game loss to the Lightning, the B’s were too reliant on their top line and power play.
A name that has been percolating in the last few weeks in connection with the Bruins is one of the big ones — Taylor Hall, the first overall pick from a decade ago and the Hart Trophy winner just two years ago. While he may have his detractors, Hall is worth a vigorous kick of the tires from the Bruins.
Drafted into an Edmonton Oilers’ organization that had been spinning its wheels seemingly forever, Hall was put in a difficult position from the get-go. When a player is made the focal point of an organization at the age of 18, bad on-ice habits can creep in and in the player’s mind. It can become all about him. Those thoughts can be hard to shake.
Traded to the New Jersey Devils in the summer of 2016, Hall finally put it all together in the 2017-18 season, carrying the Devils to the playoffs in an MVP season in which he posted