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Greg Wyshynski, ESPN
Holding the No. 1 overall pick in this week’s NHL draft, the Chicago Blackhawks provided likely first overall selection Connor Bedard with a skilled, veteran running mate as he begins his pro career.
On Monday, the Boston Bruins traded Taylor Hall and the rights to pending unrestricted free agent forward Nick Foligno to the Blackhawks in exchange for pending restricted free agent defensemen Ian Mitchell and Alec Regula.
How did the GMs do in this particular swap? Here are our grades for both sides:
Chicago had basically stripped its roster down to the bolts, support beams and Seth Jones by the end of the 2022-23 season in an effort to tank– … ahem, to maximize its NHL draft lottery potential. Now that the Blackhawks have the first overall pick secured, and franchise-altering center Connor Bedard on the way, general manager Kyle Davidson had so start nosing up from the team’s freefall by adding talent around the phenom.
He couldn’t have cast two better veterans in those roles than Taylor Hall and Nick Foligno.
The Blackhawks pick up the full freight of Hall’s $6 million cap hit for the next two seasons, although they’re due to pay him $12.6 million in actual dollars during that span. Chicago likely isn’t going to reach the salary cap ceiling on its tippy-toes this season, so every dollar counts to get over the floor.
Hall had 36 points, including 16 goals, in 61 games for the Bruins last season in a reduced role, skating 15 minutes, 56 seconds per game and playing on the second-unit power play (2:14 per game). That usage should change in Chicago rather immediately — it’s not hard to imagine Hall will be Bedard’s wingman this season. On the ice, he’s a great fit theoretically: Bedard is a goal-scoring center and Hall, despite scoring 39 goals in his Hart Trophy-winning season with the New Jersey Devils, excels as a playmaking left wing.
Off the ice, it’s an ideal fit. Hall has seen this movie before: He was Connor McDavid‘s housemate in the Edmonton Oilers star’s rookie season. As their former coach Todd McLellan told me in 2016: “I think Taylor showed very good leadership skills in inviting him into his world, and sharing his experiences as a No. 1 pick coming out of junior. What he thought it would be like. What it actually was like. Handling the media.”
As for Foligno, one assumes the Blackhawks have at least an inkling that he’d be open to joining their team. It’s a rebuild. They’ll be young. Having one of the best character guys in the league in that locker room in Foligno will be a big benefit, even if the 35-year-old’s best on-ice production is behind him.
Both players will help create the culture the team wants around Bedard. And obviously acquiring Hall is the retroactive reason that Chicago won the lottery in the first place, as Taylor Hall’s teams have done spookily often.
The Bruins get knocked down a little for putting themselves in a position where they had to trade a player of Hall’s caliber for a middling return to get other business done.
But with his salary off the cap — and without having to retain any of it in the deal — Boston can turn its attention to securing the services of another playmaking left wing: Tyler Bertuzzi, the pass-happy, pending unrestricted free agent who showed great chemistry with star winger David Pastrnak after coming over at the trade deadline.
Boston went on a bit of a shopping spree for right-handed defenseman on Monday. Ian Mitchell and Alec Regula have split time between the NHL and AHL over the past few seasons. Regula is 6-foot-4; Mitchell played for Bruins coach Jim Montgomery at the University of Denver. The Bruins also traded forward Shane Bowers to the Devils for defenseman Reilly Walsh, who played at Harvard and was stuck in New Jersey’s glut of defensemen and defensive prospects.
Obviously, this trade is all about what comes next for the Bruins. All things considered, not a bad bit of business.