The Neverending Breakup, Part 2

On today’s episode of the neverending Taylor Hall saga…

It seems that someone in the MSM once again asked him how he felt about the Oilers playoff run. Predictably, he’s a little bit glad that the Oilers aren’t contending for the Stanley Cup.

I wouldn’t say I wanted them to lose, but it was nice to finally see them maybe get eliminated. It’s a tough thing to describe to people. I think there’s been enough time that’s passed since the trade has happened that you finally just kind of… it is what it is now. And I’m a Devil, and I’m excited to see what we can do next season.

Obviously there’s a lot of chatter about this comment, and whether it’s sour grapes on his part. (Spoiler: it’s not.)

Taylor Hall was, for a number of years, one of the few bright spots on a team that couldn’t find its way out of an open paper bag. He didn’t want to be traded, and it’s perfectly reasonable for him to still have some lingering negative feelings about the trade that led him to New Jersey and a seventh consecutive missed postseason.

The thing that is troubling about this interview is that Taylor Hall didn’t ask to be traded, and he doesn’t ask for the questions. There’s a faction in the mainstream media that can’t seem to let the trade die, and there’s no way Hall can win. If he doesn’t answer the questions he’ll be badgered until he does (and has an outburst of sorts), but when he does answer it seems that he’s being led down a particular path. To his credit, Taylor Hall hasn’t taken the opportunity to drag the Oilers organization through the mud, even though he had every chance to do so.

Today though, while answering a question about the team’s poor performance, Hall all but confirmed that the Oilers were, in fact, tanking at certain points during his tenure here:

That was frustrating when in the dressing room and [with] the coaches the game plan is to try and win games, but sometimes the ultimate plan isn’t really to do that at some point, especially early in my career. I think that’s hard on a young player. I think that the biggest thing for development for young players is seeing how to win games, and maybe that could have been done more in Edmonton early on, but I’m not really sure.

For Oiler fans who categorically denied the tank, this should provide some food for thought.