By: Nick Lanciani
To kick off Wednesday afternoon’s unbelievable trades, Edmonton Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli made history. The wrong kind of history. Chiarelli already notoriously traded Tyler Seguin (the 2nd overall pick of the 2010 NHL Entry Draft) from the Boston Bruins to the Dallas Stars in a seven player deal in the 2013 offseason, but now he’s traded the 1st overall pick in 2010— Taylor Hall.
Yes, left winger, Taylor Hall got traded on Wednesday from the Oilers to early candidate for the 2017 General Manager of the Year Award, Ray Shero’s New Jersey Devils— the other presumptive finalist is David Poile in Nashville, for landing P.K. Subban on the same afternoon— in exchange for defenseman, Adam Larsson.
Chiarelli is the first general manager in any of the four major professional sports in North America to trade the first two picks in a draft (Hall and Seguin, 2010). Of note, he also acquired former 6th overall pick of the Tampa Bay Lightning that same year, Brett Connolly in his waning days as general manager of the Boston Bruins, in March 2014.
To recap, the first six players from the 2010 NHL Entry Draft have all been traded.
- Taylor Hall (drafted by EDM, traded to NJ)
- Tyler Seguin (drafted by BOS, traded to DAL)
- Erik Gudbranson (drafted by FLA, traded to VAN)
- Ryan Johansen (drafted by CBJ, traded to NSH)
- Nino Niederreiter (drafted by NYI, traded to MIN)
- Brett Connolly (drafted by TB, traded to BOS)
New Jersey finds themselves with a steal of a trade, having surrendered their 4th overall pick from the 2011 NHL Entry Draft in Adam Larsson to the struggling, but in bad need of a top-4 defenseman, Edmonton Oilers.
Of course, there’s the fact that Larsson had been sent to the Albany Devils (AHL) a couple of seasons ago for a conditioning stint, but that should be no distraction as to the lack of exponential growth that was expected from the 4th overall pick in 2011 that’s now expected to likely play top-2 minutes in Edmonton with a depleted blue line, unless the Oilers have more tricks up their sleeves.
Hall is a 24-year-old left winger who’s $6.000 million AAV contract runs out at the end of the 2019-2020 season. In his six years with the Oilers he had 132-196-328 totals in 381 career NHL games. Hall led Edmonton in scoring in three of the last four seasons. He had 26 goals, 39 assists and 65 points in 82 games this season.
Larsson is a 23-year-old defenseman who has played in 274 regular season games with the Devils. His $4.167 million AAV contract expires after the 2020-2021 season and he has recorded 69 points in his career (9 goals, 60 assists). Larsson’s made five appearances in the postseason and scored one goal in that span.
It took Peter Chiarelli nine days to find a job after the Bruins fired him on April 15, 2015. It took him one star player involving trade to make Oilers fans feel just as Bruins fans did on July 4th, 2013 (when Boston traded Seguin under Chiarelli’s reigns).
