Hall fitting in with fast-paced city life
Taylor Hall has learned how to avoid rush hour traffic in New York City.
Overwhelmed when he first made the jaunt from New Jersey to Manhattan as a first-year winger for the Devils, Hall is used to it now. Not only does he know when to avoid the almost incomparable snare of New York traffic, he knows how to get around, too.
Life just outside one of the biggest cities in the world took some adjustment for the 25-year-old from Alberta.
“It’s a fresh start (and) that part made it fun and exciting and it still is for me,” said Hall.
Hall grew up in Calgary before playing six seasons with the Edmonton Oilers.
“The New York City area is very congested,” Hall said during his second appearance at the NHL allstar game. “Everyone’s in a rush.”
“In Alberta,” he added, “people are more relaxed and you’re more likely to have a door held open for you in Alberta than you are probably in New York City.”
The pace was too much at first. But now, almost five months into his tenure with the Devils, Hall likes the big city life just fine.
Hall wasn’t happy when Edmonton, after years of poor rebuilding teams, shipped him to New Jersey last summer. He was admittedly bitter after the trade. He was also exiting a Connor McDavid-led squad that looked to be on the rise while joining a Devils club only just beginning to rebuild.
It took about a month before Hall found a normal routine with his new team. Adam Henrique, a former teammate with the OHL Windsor Spitfires and career Devil, was especially helpful.
Typically, the off-ice adjustment is most challenging for traded players, but for Hall it was the opposite. The Devils style — heavier defensively as he describes it — was so much different from the freewheeling Oilers squads he left behind in Alberta.
“Certainly it’s a big change,” Hall said of the move.
“At the start I was a little bit overwhelmed, but now I love it.”