After taking over Senator defense attorney Mike Reilly late Sunday night, Sweeney swung a move for Sabers Taylor Hall and Curtis Lazar in exchange for striker Anders Bjork and a second round goal for the fences.
Hall comes to the Bruins amid a really miserable season in Buffalo (in every way), with two goals and 19 points in 37 games for the worst Sabers in the league. Hall also scores the worst 2.3 percent of his career, and his minus 21 rating is also the worst of his career, although it’s evident the Sabers have offered little help on either count.
Lazar is meanwhile a striker with six goals and nine points in 33 games. Lazar, who was elected in the 2013 first round (# 17 overall), also comes to the B with a tenure as he signed the 2021-22 season with an extremely affordable cap hit of $ 800,000. According to Boston, Björk leaves the Bruins with just 16 goals and 39 points in 138 games in four seasons and just one assist in 10 playoff games (all in 2020).
Given the initial demand from the Sabers and of the hopes of a Hall trade, I thought it would be caught.
For the Sabers, it was only a year (decade?) Disaster, and General Manager Kevyn Adams had yet to salvage what he could in the deadline market. Eric Staal was sent to Montreal for a third and fifth round selection. Brandon Montour was sent to Florida for a third round selection. And Jack Eichel is out of action and therefore not on the block, while Kyle Okposo and Jeff Skinner are trapped right in Buffalo with two of the worst contracts in all of ice hockey.
It was just like the Sabers were getting a high-end return on their most valuable chip (Hall) until they had no choice but to take the best offer at 2:59 p.m. on Monday afternoon.
It didn’t help that the weekend started with David Savard moving to Tampa Bay for a first-round selection and continuing the move on Sunday with Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno for a first-round selection moved from Columbus to the Maple Leafs. These deals (and the Foligno deal in particular) created the impression that the Sabers’ hopes of making a first choice or top prospect for Hall were not as far-fetched as we initially thought.
So, to move a bottom six winger and late second round election for hall and bottom six striker with a cheaper term than the one you drop? Man, that almost feels like robbery. Beat that, it is.
And make no mistake, Hall and the Bruins was a marriage 11 years in the making. From the 2010 NHL Draft in which both the Bruins and Hall fell behind in hopes the Oilers defeated number 1 overall Tyler Seguin to bring the number 1 striker to them (and their top line) to slide down. The Bruins and Hall were already connected in a way last summer. I understand Hall had a clear interest in the Bruins this off-season as well, but the traffic jam, both in terms of roster and space requirements, made it difficult to get something up and running early and an $ 8 million Dollar offer to play with Eichel for a year and enter a (larger) open market in 2021 was too good to pass up.
Hall’s year-long gambling with the Sabers also came with a no-movement clause that gave the 29-year-old a say wherever he went. Given his previous interest in Boston, both in his design year and before the start of the 2021 season, it’s not hard to imagine he’s trying to move Buffalo in a certain direction and let them figure out the best deal available.
Hall’s knowledge and interest in Boston surely extends beyond his design year visit and subsequent road trips to The Hub, one might think. Hall’s former agency (Quartexx Management), formerly represented by Bobby Orr, also represents Bruins captain Patrice Bergeron, and his agent Darren Ferris is also the agent for Bruin’s top prospect Jack Studnicka. If he needed more information about the potential fit in Boston, there was no doubt he could have got it from his warehouse.
The Bruins are a team that desperately needs high-end skills in their mid-six- Striker group is needed, and Hall has that and a few more. I mean, are there any doubts that he is now the third most qualified winger on the team behind Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak? That was a role Jake DeBrusk had previously and it seems like too big a question for him if this team will go where it needs to win a Stanley Cup, especially on the line of David Krejci.
Maybe Hall is not the shooter he once was – Hall has only scored 6.7 percent (29 goals in 433 shots) since 2018, after finishing his career with 10.9 percent (191 goals in 1,757) from 2010 to 2017/18 Shots) – but he can still create.
In the group of 121 strikers with at least 500 five-on-five minutes in 2021, Hall ranks 32nd for the individual chances with high risk and 50th for the individual chances to score. Hall ranks 23rd in the Single High Risk Opportunities per 60 with 4.23, which is more than names like Connor McDavid, Alex Ovechkin, and Brayden Point. The biggest difference between Hall and these players is of course the actual, tangible production. And that was an obvious problem for Hall, and he’s either straightforwardly resolved or looked dejected from Saber worries this season. But the Bruins clearly hope that taking Hall out of the Buffalo discomfort and into the fire of a win-now room in Boston will bring him back to life.
(Given the price above, this isn’t the worst game of chance you could play.)
Another analytical boost that Hall brings with his addition to the Boston mix? Chances out of a hurry.
A team that has had a hard time offending in a rush gets one of the best players in the league. Now we’re just waiting to see if Hall converts those expected goals into actual goals in Boston. pic.twitter.com/jjfGSvOeSj
There’s really no shortage of hot takes when it comes to reverb. And I have to admit, some of them seem a bit over the top.
Instead of diving into the idea that Hall is a « coach killer, » let’s acknowledge the following instead …
If you are under the age of 25 and are in your fourth NHL season, scratching your way five games in a row before the NHL close of trade is never good. After the third, I would probably consider contacting my property manager and letting them know that I may be canceling my lease earlier than expected because you don’t spend a long time looking into your current city.
And just like with Danton Heinen in 2020, it turned out to be the case for Bruins winger Anders Bjork as well. The 24-year-old was the only NHL body sent to Buffalo in exchange for Hall and Lazar.
Björk was always a fascinating case during his time in Boston.
Everyone always wanted Björk to get this or that, but almost every time he didn’t take this opportunity. The Bruins tried repeatedly to give him top 6 chances, but he never got stuck – whether it be due to bad penalties, a failure to shoot an effective clip, or being noticeable in almost any area, it was a simple spin of the wheel – and he really only thrives on a fourth line. That’s fair, that’s fine. But it wasn’t seen as a real need for this team. (In fact, space-constrained bottom six players is one of the few things this team has a real surplus of in 2021.)
Could Björk afford a longer leash from the coaching staff? Sometimes definitely. (He actually played some great, aggressive hockey that led to his commercial scratches.) But at a certain point, you have to do something with these possibilities and force the hand of the staff. It just never felt like Bjork had found that extra gear in the past two seasons.
Ty Anderson is a writer and columnist for 985TheSportsHub.com. All opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Beasley Media Group, or any of its affiliates. Shout at him on Twitter: @_TyAnderson.
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