I got that one wrong they can't have a top 3 pick and win a playoff round

Did Ray Shero forget that Arizona still has:

21 - Keller
23 - Schmaltz
21 - Chychrun
23 - Dvorak
22 - Crouse
19 - Hayton
18 - Söderström
24 - Hinostroza
22 - Fischer
23 - Garland
20 - Dineen
22 - Hill

Are you talking about Merkley? Because he stopped producing in the AHL as soon as he stopped playing with Strome.

The real question is... Who is Blake Speers?



Seriously.... I need to know

Will you re-think that pronouncement if Hall plays only 44 games with Arizona and then moves on?

Hall was excellent in the playoffs in 2018 vs. Tampa. The only things that mitigated his trade value was his injury history and his relatively slow start to this season. When healthy, he's a top 20 player. The fact that he's only made the playoffs once is more a reflection of the terrible teams around him.

I think he actually made the Devils team out of camp when he was 19. But he's clearly never developed properly. I also remember him playing in the WJC. He was arguably the Devils top prospect at one point.

Exactly! What if CBJ had won the Cup w/ Panarin last season? I give Shero credit here. Hall was a huge distraction to the team, especially the young guys. Now they can focus on developing their games and the team can build for the future. Had Shero waited til the deadline, Hall could easily get hurt or the market could shrink. I'd have preferred an A prospect like Hayton or Soderstrom, but at least one of the guys in this package should turn in to an impact player at the NHL level.

I’d rather Adam Larson than that package

Yeah the team that's rebuilding would rather have the pending UFA in 1 year whose a lowish top 4 defensive dman at his absolute best......

I'm really surprised by some of the responses on here..... NJ got a pretty darn decent haul. Not all quantity over quality trades are bad.

Not going to lie if I had to choose between:

(Similar to Mark Stone trade)
Victor Soderstrom
2nd rounder 2020
Oesterle

and

Bahl
Merkley
Schnarr
1st 2020
1st 2021 (solid chance since they are looking to resign him and poised for a playoff spot with home advantage)


I'd think I'd take the second choice.

Nate Schnarr was a 100 point player last year in the OHL. Bahl is poised to be a NHL behemoth dman sooner than later. Merkely has the skill, just needs the environment and patience for him to show it. NJ could be a perfect fit. That's 3 prospects who all have high end ability. Throw in a 1st this year and decent chance at a 1st next year......

Wait till those two picks are selected before you start crapping over the GM. They could be gems. Winnipeg didn't think they were getting a super stud when they drafted Heinola at 20th last year, Or two guys like Tomasino or McMichael who are absolutely tearing up the OHL right now, both taken at 24 and 25 respectively. Two spots NJ could have with those picks this year and next. Maybe better, maybe lower, we'll have to wait and see.

Its no guarantee for sure but then again neither is Victor Soderstrom......

Don’t remind me about Tomasino and McMichael, WHO WERE BOTH TAKEN RIGHT AFTER THE ISLES TOOK SIMON EFFING HOLMSTROM

Lol well Holmstrom isn't bad so not sure what the problem is? He's 18 playing in the AHL already......

Anyways all the more reason why you can see how the Hall trade isn't all that bad.

Well we need a good young center, and Tomasino specifically I wanted, so when I was watching the draft I was so excited cuz I was sure we’d pick him (or Ryan Suzuki, cuz I wanted him too) and then we took Homlstrom, who I’ve never even heard of at the time. And now with McMichael being an absolute beast in the OHL, it kinda stinks to see, especially since we could definitely use a young center

Did Arizona make this trade as an attempt to win the cup or to get Lafreniere?

I think the devils win especially if that conditional pick is a 2nd or better round pick

Chayka won't even negotiate a contract with Hall until the end of the season. He paid that for a 6 month rental. LMAO

Njd got 3 b/c prospects, a 3rd and a 1st
The 3rd likely turns into a b/c prospect.
That is a total of 4b/c prospects and a 1st.
Grabner got 5 b/c prospects

Hall got more, but not a ton more. Those are very similar packages

I've come down a bit on the Naz trade, but sakic 100% lost that trade, just like Shero lost this one. When Grabner gets a similar packages to Hall, there is an issue.

This is also whataboutism. It is a logical fallacy. You've made no argument against anything I've said.

You also highly underrate hall. His underlyings are fantastic, he is just shooting a low % and on a bad team this year.

I'm personally surprised that Chayka didn't have to give up Ivan Prosvetov. He clearly looked like the best prospect of the bunch (he's had 8 starts and a .944 for Tucson, vs. 12 starts and a .907 for Adin Hill), and, given the Devils'... struggles with goaltending, he'd have been a good get.
We know Hayton, Söderström, and Jeník were off the table to begin with; the only other real good prospects available were Brayden Burke, Lane Pederson, and Kyle Capobianco. If Shero wanted longer-term prospects, I suppose he could have looked at Mattias Maccelli, Aku Räty, John Farinacci, or Ty Emberson, as well.

To everyone saying Shero didn't get enough in return, I'll raise you this point. Don't you think that if there was more on the table, he would've gone that direction? Because if he doesn't take this deal simply because it's "not enough", what happens when he doesn't get a better trade offer for him? He keeps him and lets him walk, and then everyone says, "well at least get *something* for him!". He got what he could and that's that. Not a whole lot to digest here.

I think the argument may be that they had months to wait, but maybe they wanted to do it while the 1st round pick could still be a high one. If it's top 3 it'll be moved to 2021, but maybe they still think there's a good chance they'll get a pick somewhere from 4-10 or whatever.

Not sure you can quite compare these two trades evenly though. It could be said that despite those players never amounting to anything in the NHL, Toronto technically overpaid in that trade for Grabner..... based purely on prospect count and draft status of some of them. That was a weird trade in which everyone lost.....

The devil was in the details though.

Simply looking at those players, at the time of the trade, they weren't as highly touted as you can honestly say they were.

-Matt Finn - 21 - Split between AHL and ECHL. Had a stellar draft + 2 season but signs of not being worthy of an early 2nd round pick started early on when turning pro a full year prior to being traded. Decent value but it was fleeting my the end of the year.
-Taylor Beck - 24 - Put up decent numbers in junior and AHL but played mostly as a 4th liner with Nashville before going to Toronto. Solid AHL'er but nothing more than that and everyone knew it. held very little value.
-Tom Nilsson - 22 - Played half a year in the AHL and toyed with going back to Sweden. Ultimately went back to Sweden. Was only a 4th rounder anyway and was not on anyone's radar and held very little value.
-Chris Gibson - 22 - Had solid year with the Marlies before being traded but then again drafted high by the Kings and let go two years later as he signed as free agent with the Leafs. There was a reason for that. Really hard to tell what the value was here. Was playing well and had potential but came with an asterisk.
-Carter Verhaeghe - 20 - Had solid potential as his draft plus 1 and 2 years were pretty good. IMO looking at the time of the trade, he was the one with the highest potential but even then, being honest and using a little hindsight after the fact, there was a reason he had to spend time in the ECHL years after and only until this year at age 24 did he finally break in the NHL. His foot speed and attention to detail wasn't very good. IMO Verhaeghe has all star AHL'er but 4th line scrub NHL'er written all over him. Just like guys like Agostino, Reid Boucher, Chris Terry, etc

Now look at Arizona's players:

-Kevin Bahl - 19 - Putting up solid numbers in OHL. No reason to believe he won't be a decent NHL'er soon enough.
-Nate Schnarr - 20 - 100 point producer in the AHL last year, Just under 0.5 PPG in his first 20 pro games. Potential remains there for him to be solid NHL'er.
-Nick Merkely - 22 - Former 1st round pick but struggling to become "impact" player in the AHL not warranting of the 1st round status. BUT still decent point producer in the AHL so far though. People tend to write him off because he isn't living up to his 1st round pick status but its not like he isn't producing in the AHL. Creeping on bust but not quite there yet.
-2020 1st round pick - Projected to be anywhere between 20-30th. Very solid draft and potential for stud player.
-2021 cond. pick - Depends solely on Arizona winning a single round and resigning Hall. Resigning Hall may be a tough hing to do but they have plenty of players they can move out to make space if need be. Winning a round I feel is a good chance. I think the odds this at least upgrades to a 2nd is high with an ok chance of it being another unprotected 1st in 2021.

I think the picks and prospects in the Hall trade were way more calculated and precise and you may be overlooking where the value really is. its in the draft picks ore than it is the prospects.

Saying that "Hall got more, but not a ton more. Those are very similar packages" isn't accurate in the slightest. Yeah sure they both have 5 pieces in the deal but the quality is way more defined in the Hall trade and the promise of those pieces becoming quality are significantly higher. Regardless of where those picks end up, they drag the value in the trade up way higher than the Grabner return.

Did Shero get top dollar? No he did not. I absolutely agree that based on what we saw in previous years, he technically should have gotten more, but that isn't to say what he got was bad. It has potential to be really good. Just got to wait a little longer than most to know if it will or not.

The counterargument could be the longer they waited, the less Taylor Hall time any potential team was going to get because it's pretty clear he's going to test free agency.

I think the only difference between the prospects Toronto gave up and the prospects NJ got for hall is 5 years time. Realistically in 2024 if we look back on this trade, it likely shows that there were no important pieces returned for njd. Really the only one I would even be a little concerned about changing that is the late first, and even then it's a coin flip at best. Well have to see but I am not very high in the guys they got back. If this is the new rental price then so be it, but imo NJ needed to get quality > quantity, which they did the opposite.

The ages and descriptions I gave in my analysis were at the time of the trade. Not using any hindsight. (Except for at the end with Verhaeghe but regardless he was only a 3rd rounder and not a top prospect)

Also all of the players in the Grabner trade, except for Verhaeghe, were 21 years old or older. The only player over 21 in the Hall trade is Merkely. A former 1st round pick who despite not proving he's worthy of the 1st round status is still putting up decent points in the AHL. He is only 22 years old. Not old enough to wrote off yet either. I feel people are too black or white with this guy. Just because he isn't a future stud doesn't mean he can't be a good player still.

Toronto already had a good idea of what they had in those players. Most of what NJ got are still junior aged assets. (Bahl / 1st / cond 3rd). Schnarr 20 games into his pro career. Merkely is the only known commodity at the moment.

I agree quality tends to be better than quantity but that isn't a guaranteed rule, its just an ideology. One that doesn't always work out.

I think Hall being a winger, injury prone, expecting to get a huge raise, higher chance to test free agency, 1 really good season and that's it, are what stopped Shero from getting the quality people think he was worth.

I'm not sure any GM could have convinced another GM otherwise. So despite that fact, Shero did the next best thing, get as many assets as possible (of decently high calibre) and hope that at least one becomes high quality.

There's also the fact that Arizona is not guaranteed anything yet. With a couple injuries to key players they could be a bubble team. Not much gap in the NHL with the parity. If St Louis can do what they did last year, Arizona could easily miss the playoffs with a little bad luck.