Eleven months ago, I wrote my first story for THW, making the case for how the Chicago Blackhawks signing Taylor Hall could help shape Connor Bedard’s future. I said the veteran forward knew the pressure of being a No. 1 overall pick, how he has the hardware and pedigree to succeed, and why this might have been the savviest signing for general manager Kyle Davidson.
All it took was 10 games spread out over a month, and Hall’s season was done. He aggravated a previous shoulder injury in October and missed a few games, then an iffy hit by Tampa Bay Lightning’s Michael Eyssimont on Nov. 9 forced him to undergo surgery on his right knee and miss the rest of the 2023-24 regular season.
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Ten games, that’s all we’ve seen out of the 2010 NHL Entry Draft’s top pick in a Blackhawks’ uniform, through no fault of his own. Now with one season left on a four-year, $24 million deal he signed ahead of the 2021-22 season, the 32-year-old winger has to perform and earn what could potentially be his last contract with multiple years on it.
Let’s look at how Hall and the Blackhawks could benefit one another this upcoming season.
Hall Needs to Stay Healthy
The most obvious thing for Hall in 2024-25 is to stay healthy: after all, the best ability is availability (which feels like such an archaic cliche – I feel like the best ability is to score goals, or produce offense, but that’s why I’m writing about the game and not coaching or scouting it).
Looking at Hall’s career since he won the Hart Trophy with the New Jersey Devils in 2017-18, the Calgary native has 75 goals and 148 assists for 223 points in 303 regular-season games, equating to about 0.74 points per game (P/G), meaning he’d average around 61 points over a full 82-game season. Heck, knock that down to around 75 games a season, and he’d still give you a point total in the mid-50s, perfectly reasonable for a top-six winger.
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The problem is Hall has only played more than 65 games once since that award-winning campaign, as a litany of injuries have sidetracked the second half of his career. What’s frustrating is in that time, you’ve seen glimpses of what could be a highly productive forward: 52 points between the Devils and Arizona Coyotes in 2019-20, 33 points in 53 games between the Buffalo Sabres and Boston Bruins in 2020-21, and 36 points in 61 games with the Bruins in 2022-23.
The one healthy season Hall had was with Boston in 2021-22, scoring 20 goals and 41 assists for 61 points in 81 games. Who wouldn’t want a 60-point winger in their top-six group, sprinkling in a wee bit of power-play time? That was just three years ago, yet it feels like a whole new era compared to where we are now.
If Hall wants to have the type of bounceback season a player of his caliber is capable of having, staying on the ice is priority No. 1.
Blackhawks Should Give Hall Chance to Play with Bedard
After the Blackhawks acquired Hall from the Bruins in June 2023, I wrote that Hall had a chance to exploit the bigger role he was expected to take with Chicago as the team’s most talented winger. Even right now ahead of training camp, I would still assign Hall as the Blackhawks’ best forward after Bedard.
Of course, we didn’t really get to see what Hall could provide to a rebuilding Blackhawks’ lineup, as he only played 10 games. What’s also scary is that it’s hard for players entering their mid-30s to come back from major reconstructive knee surgery and play as if nothing happened.
But if there’s any player on this roster who deserves a chance to play alongside Chicago’s franchise player in Bedard, it’s Hall. Yes, the club signed Tyler Bertuzzi in the offseason, and there’s no doubt head coach Luke Richardson will put the scrappy winger beside Bedard at different points of the season. But as someone who’s followed Bertuzzi since his junior days with the Ontario Hockey League’s Guelph Storm, he doesn’t have the skill or the foot speed to handle playing with a phenom like No. 98.
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That’s not a knock on Bertuzzi, who has a chance to endear himself to a fanbase starved for the type of player he can be when he’s at his best. But entering his ninth NHL season and turning 30 this season, he’s never amounted to more than 40ish points per season, relying on tap-in goals and way too many power-play minutes. His career-best season with the Detroit Red Wings in 2021-22 saw him score 30 goals and 32 assists for 62 points – great numbers, no doubt, but in the grand scheme of things, a relatively average year for a player like Hall.
Enough about Bertuzzi, back to Hall … having taken the last nine months to recover, he’s going to be about as healthy as he’ll ever be, and you can bet a player with his skillset will try to carve out a productive season at this stage of his career.
But beyond boxscores and bonuses, what may drive Hall to have the type of bounce-back season I’m getting at is his ego. I’m not saying he’s a jerk or reporting that he’s a diva, but at one point, Hall came into the league with all the expectations and hype in the world, and years later was considered one of the best players in the game. Teams have given up assets to acquire him, and he’s been provided with opportunities to thrive.
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Now there’s a case to be made that Hall may be showing the kind of hard decline players experience in their 30s. Going into his 15th NHL season, no one would be surprised if Hall slowly devolves into irrelevance, playing out this season and spending the rest of his career signing one-year deals, chasing rings with whatever team is willing to sign him.
Or he can step up and produce at a rate close to, if not equal to what he was able to generate in his last healthy season, racking up assists and feeding passes to hockey’s next great superstar. Forget the cliches of veteran leadership and locker room presence, be the best damn player you can be and show the rest of the league that you’re worth a two- or three-year deal at your age, and that you’ll give them a chance at hockey immortality.
Call it a comeback, a bounce back, a love shack, a jumping jack, whatever you want: it’s in Hall’s hands.
