Montreal Canadiens: Why The Habs Should Stay Far Away From Taylor Hall

The Montreal Canadiens have the cap space and young assets to acquire Taylor Hall, but they should not even make an offer for the former Hart Trophy winner.

The Montreal Canadiens have held on to cap space for three straight seasons. They have tabled into trade and free agent talks but haven’t really acquired a big name player with a heavy price tag. The players they do acquire are usually traded in one-for-one type trades for a player making a similar salary.

With all of the available cap space and a team that needs an upgrade to be included among Stanley Cup contender status, the Montreal Canadiens have been linked to Taylor Hall in various rumours over the past few weeks.

The Canadiens could definitely use a “game-breaker” type of player. They have a lot of good players and have shown how good they can be by beating some of the top teams around the National Hockey League this season. However, they don’t have a deep enough team or a top-end player that is capable of breaking games open when the Habs gain momentum.

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As a result, we often see the Canadiens getting more shots, chances and time on attack on their opposition, but it doesn’t always translate to wins. If the Habs had a pure goal scorer, or a recent top draft pick that was lighting up the scoreboard, they would be a far more dangerous team and a real threat to make noise in the Atlantic Division.

This is why Taylor Hall makes sense for the Habs – at least on the surface. The Habs could definitely use an exciting player that won a Hart Trophy in 2018. With Jonathan Drouin injured, the Habs have been using Nick Cousins on the second line left wing at times, which shows the lack of depth they have at the position that Hall plays.

However, Hall is a pending unrestricted free agent and the Canadiens have to be realistic and understand they aren’t a Taylor Hall away from being a true Stanley Cup contender. If they did acquire Hall, it would obviously make them better, but would it make them better than the Boston Bruins? The Washington Capitals? The New York Islanders right now?

No. It wouldn’t. Then Hall would be free to leave as a free agent if he wanted. That would mean the Habs would have to give up huge assets just to have Hall for a few months and have very little chance of a deep playoff run.

The Devils are going to want a huge return for Hall. For the Habs to land him, we are talking about trading Ryan Poehling, Josh Brook and the Chicago Blackhawks second round pick which will be among the first picks of the second round. That’s a lot of future assets to give up for a futile Cup chase.

Also, no one seems to want to mention it, but Hall hasn’t exactly been tearing the league apart since winning his Hart Trophy. He’s been good, but hasn’t been in any MVP talk the past two seasons. He has played 63 games since taking home the Hart, and has 17 goals in that time. That’s a 22 goal pace over a full season of games.

According to Elliote Friedman of Sportsnet, the Devils have not given permission to anyone to talk about a contract extension with Hall and he believes it to be very unlikely that Hall re-signs with anyone before hitting free agency in July. The cost to acquire him for such a short time just doesn’t make sense for the Canadiens.

If the Habs like Hall, they will just have to wait until the summer and then try to acquire him as a free agent. You can’t disrupt the young core that is building right now and then risk losing Hall in a few months. If the Habs want to keep all their young players together and try to add a 28 year old Hall to the mix, that would make more sense.

Even signing him as a free agent would be quite expensive for the Habs. However, they could always free up some space if they need to in the offseason by trading a player like Tomas Tatar who would be entering the last year of his contract.

Hall has been a healthy scratch for the past two games as he waits to be traded. Let’s just hope his next game isn’t played with the Montreal Canadiens as the cost would be just too much for a building team like the Habs.