Hey Sabres fans, guess whos coming back to Buffalo on Friday

The Boston Bruins are coming to town to take on the Buffalo Sabres at the end of the week and that means a visit from our old buddy, Taylor Hall.

The signing of Taylor Hall before the 2021 season was seen as a tremendous coup by Sabres GM Kevyn Adams. Fans were salivating over the idea that a guy who won the Hart Trophy just two seasons earlier would join the likes of Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart and provide a jolt to the offense. Hall even talked about how happy he was to be reunited with Ralph Kruger and how he would be open to signing a long-term deal.

Right.

Hall did score in his first game as a Sabre against the Capitals. But then … nothing. That is until March 4th, 20 games later, when he finally scored goal number two against the Islanders. By that time the season was long gone.

In 37 games for the Sabres, Hall managed only those two goals. That’s $4 million per goal.

Granted, Hall did contribute 17 assists. But he was also a -21. Many hockey people dismiss the plus/minus number as being unfair or irrelevant and they could very well be right. But -21 is a bit galling for only 37 games.

After gliding his way to failure in Buffalo, Hall was clearly not planning to stay long with the Sabres and the trade talks began to intensify as the deadline approached. He then used the leverage in his contract to dictate the terms of his trade, leaving Adams no choice but to send him to one of our most hated rivals. We all watched as Hall magically found his game again and scored 8 times in the final 16 games of the regular season with the Boston Bruins.

Perhaps the most irritating part of the Taylor Hall disaster is that he never seemed to be held responsible for his poor play. Most of the national media people talked about how bad Buffalo is and how toxic the Sabres organization is and how impossible the situation was for Hall in Buffalo. Even Hall himself jumped on that bandwagon. When he was asked about the Jack Eichel mess, he was quick to say he felt bad for Jack and said, “those were dark days in Buffalo.”

It never seemed to occur to anyone outside Buffalo that Hall himself was to blame for his lack of effort and lack of production. The fact that he started to skate hard and shoot the puck on net and score goals again when he went to Boston seemed to be evidence to everyone that Hall wasn’t to blame for his failure as a Sabre. The Bruins were praised for their shrewdness in acquiring Hall and his resurgence became a sickening narrative that wouldn’t go away until the Islanders finally bounced the Bruins from the playoffs.

I hope the new and improved Sabres run the Bruins out of the building on Friday night and I hope the fans in attendance will make their presence felt every time his skate blades hit the ice.

I’ve only scratched the surface of the Hall disaster here. You can read more unhinged ranting about Taylor Hall and many other elements of Sabres lore in a new book called Group Therapy For Sabres Fans.