Taylor Hall is now a member of the Chicago Blackhawks. The Boston Bruins have traded Hall and his full $6 million cap hit to Chicago as they look to create some breathing room in an unenviable salary cap situation.
After a mightily successful regular season that broke NHL records, the Bruins were promptly dumped out of the first round of the playoffs by the upstart Florida Panthers. Adding insult to injury, the team entered the 2023 offseason with just $5 million in cap space and a whole 14 skaters under team control.
Hockey insider Elliotte Friedman was first on the news.
Hall played parts of three seasons with the Bruins and during the 2022-23 campaign recorded 36 points (16g, 20a) in 61 games. The Blackhawks will be Hall’s sixth team since being drafted first overall by the Edmonton Oilers in 2010. According to David Alter, he is the first, first-overall selection to do that since the 1995 draft’s Bryan Berard.
TSN’s Chris Johnston adds that Hall did have a 16-team, no-trade list but the Blackhawks were not on it so the trade was allowed to go through without his consent. The Bruins are also sending the UFA rights to veteran forward Nick Foligno to Chicago in the deal.
Here’s the full picture from the Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli.
Full trade, per sources:
To #NHLBruins: Rights to RFAs Ian Mitchell and Alec Regula.
To #Blackhawks: Taylor Hall, rights to UFA Nick Foligno.
No salary retained by Boston, this represents a pure salary dump to clear $6 million off Bruins' books.
— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) June 26, 2023
The Blackhawks are expected to add generational talent Connor Bedard at first overall in this week’s draft. Hall will likely be the first player to play with both Bedard and Connor McDavid, the 2015 first overall draft choice.
At the start of the offseason, Boston general manager Don Sweeney admitted that the team could likely only bring back one of their big trade deadline acquisitions in Dmitry Orlov, Garnet Hathaway, and Tyler Bertuzzi. While they are still crunched even after this move, the likelihood of that happening has probably gone up due to this cap dump.
Update (3:22 pm): The Bruins have now made this trade official.
The #NHLBruins have acquired defensemen Alec Regula and Ian Mitchell from Chicago in exchange for Taylor Hall and Nick Foligno.
📰: https://t.co/y2bJXCMdzW pic.twitter.com/lNPd6BWmp6
— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) June 26, 2023
