The Chicago Blackhawks continued their busy offseason on Monday by acquiring former Hart Trophy winner Taylor Hall in a trade with the Boston Bruins.
As part of the deal, Blackhawks will also get rights to forward Nick Foligno, who is set to hit the unrestricted free agency. On the other hand, the Bruins received a duo of pending unrestricted free-agent defensemen in, Ian Mitchell and Alec Regula.
While his production has in recent seasons, Taylor Hall can still be considered a coup for the Blackhawks. He is fairly young at the age of 31 and might rediscover some of his past form. Hall had 16 goals and a total of 36 points in 61 games with the Bruins in 2022-23.
The Blackhawks probably hope that Hall’s experience will help their young team, which is looking to establish itself as a contender in the next few years. Hall played for five different franchises so far in his NHL career and has five All-Star nods to go with the NHL MVP award he won in 2018.
The Bruins, on the other hand, likely just wanted to get rid of Hall’s contract that will pay him $6 million in each of the following two seasons. The team gets some much-needed flexibility, going from $5 million under the cap to $11 million they can work with this offseason.
