There's so much to be said about a season that was undoubtedly of MVP caliber well before it was made official last night. There's no shortage of adulation just begging to be heaped upon a player whose incredibly enduring excellence was the driving force behind a unexpected playoff berth that was always in doubt despite the Devils never having left the proverbial leaderboard from October through April. What there is a scarcity of, however, is original endorsements of Taylor Hall's value to a franchise whose future was made to look far, far more luminescent by the blooming of a star into a superstar. My ex-girlfriends might strongly disagree, but I'm not all out of compliments because I'm a stubborn S.O.B. that's hesitant to give them. Rather, I'm all out of compliments because falling back on the same two dozen or so for the umpteenth time would cheapen them. As tends to happen when someone rattles off a 26-game point streak (observe this, NHL ::violently grabs groin::) for a team that literally needed almost every single one of them to break their five year absence from the postseason, Taylor Hall exhausted any and all forms of authentic praise almost every time he took the ice. For that reason, I'm just going to casually mention in passing that the statistical disparity between himself and second highest scorer on the Devils looked to be one that you might expect of a 12 year old playing out an entire video game season as his 99-overall created self. Strictly out of habit I feel inclined to bring up that Taylor Hall spent half the season dominating alongside two of three youngest players in the entire NHL, so you're welcome for suppressing that urge as best I could. Because I know you've heard it all before in what seemed to be a never-ending debate about the definition of 'value', I'll even be nice enough to save you the repetitive reminder that #9 was hotter than the pistol he appeared to be shot out of when it mattered the most for a team that made the playoffs by all of one single point. After all, as the voting shows, his candidacy spoke for itself...
I almost feel as though the Oilers don't even deserve a mention, for as much joy as I derived out of Edmonton's misery as Taylor Hall resurrected his character as those that assassinated it were left digging their own grave, his season was so much more than just a massive middle finger to the most meddlesome of hockey markets. With how much was expected of him on a game-by-game basis, there was only so much time to revel in what can retrospectively be viewed, in part, as resolute retribution in one of its most satisfying forms. Taylor Hall went the "let bygones be bygones" route, which is fitting as his success was the result of him putting his past in the past, and letting nothing more than each next game chuck up the most devastating of deuces on a one-for-one trade...
For proof of just how important Taylor Hall was to a New Jersey Devils team of which absolutely nothing was expected, read the second half of the quote above. A then 18 year old center who had the muscle mass of a middle school distance runner on a month-long juice cleanse. A General Manager who, while highly accomplished, was mired in the middle of a rebuild. A first time head coach that was coming off a destitute season that undid all the positives of the year prior. Nico Hischier, Ray Shero, and John Hynes were all unbelievable in their own right, but - let's be honest - they make for pretty mediocre help relatively to what it takes to win a Hart Trophy. That's not so much an insult to an organizational culture that took as many powerful strides forward as their MVP as it is an acknowledgement of said MVP's undeniable impact on those strides. The Devils are now Taylor Hall's team in a way that's only been broached by Hall Of Famers that rest eternally in the Prudential Center rafters. There's not enough to be said about a player that gave an organization that won three Stanley Cups throughout two decades of perennial playoff contention their first Hart Trophy winner, and yet - in between the dropping of jaws - it was all uttered ad nauseam throughout a season that Devils' fans won't soon forget.
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