Hall is Headed to The Desert

[Jasmine]

Devils will get a first-round pick plus a conditional pick as well as prospects from Arizona for Taylor Hall - Pierre LeBrun

[Josh]

Oh wow! This is big for Arizona!

[Josh]

Having had more time to think about it, this is also really huge for the Devils. To start with, we have to remember that they got Hall for peanuts. In retrospect, while Adam Larsson isn't a terrible hockey player, he shouldn't belong in conversations about a player of Hall's calibre. This goes for the "prospect" the Devils just traded with Hall - Blake Speers - as well.

Knowing Hall wasn't going to re-sign and might not be a great fit in New Jersey anymore, they did very well. And they were smart not to wait. A top-three protected 2020 pick is HUGE in this draft. An unprotected 2021 1st wouldn't be a bad consolation prize either. And they'll get one of those either way, possibly both if Arizona makes it to the second round of this year's playoffs and re-signs Hall. If the Coyotes accomplish only one of the two, the conditional 2021 1st becomes a 2nd round pick, and becomes a 3rd if neither are accomplished. And then the Devils also raked in a good set of prospects.

The oldest of the bunch, Nick Merkley, is an interesting one. It looks like Arizona mishandled his development. The former first round pick could turn things around in NJ. It's soon or bust.

2017 pick Nate Schnarr exploded in the OHL last year and is off to a decent start playing pro this year.

2018 pick, defenseman Kevin Bahl, was revered for just about everything other than his scoring. But then he really turned it up for the Ottawa 67s in last year's playoffs, and has 20 in 28 so far this season.


Essentially, you can boil this all down to:

Adam Larsson and Blake Speers for 3 seasons of Taylor Hall, conditional 2020 and 2021 1st round picks, Nick Merkley, Nate Schnarr, and Kevin Bahl.

[Josh]

From Arizona's perspective, they can afford to lose the prospects with guys like Hayton, Soderstrom, and Nussbaumer in the fold. But the full value of the deal from their end will of course only be measurable when we know if they can retain Hall past this season (and at what price and term).

[matchesmalone]

Good points Josh. Yeah that's quite the return for Adam Larsson. Could end up being one of those trades that you look back on in ten years and see all of the picks' and prospects' development and the subsequent trades, it could end up looking rrrreeeeeally bad for Edmonton and Chiarelli.

I have to wonder whether Arizona did anything wrong with Merkley's development. It might have just been a bad I think the crucial moment in Nick Merkley's career was playing half of his draft season on a line with 18 year old Leon Draisaitl. He's only 5'10, so it was always an uphill battle, and there were a lot of question marks about areas of his game and his NHL translatability. Interesting that Central had him 23rd and ISS had him 19th. But maybe the pro scouts understood something that the media rankings did not, beacause they all passed on him until 30th.