Hall's Investment Earns Multi-Year Deal With Canes

RALEIGH, N.C. - As if a dramatic double overtime win to advance in the Stanley Cup Playoffs wasn't reason enough for celebration, Carolina Hurricanes General Manager Eric Tulsky put a cherry on top of your metaphorical sundae on Wednesday.

Under 12 hours after Taylor Hall scored a goal that helped the Canes put the New Jersey Devils to bed, the team announced that forward had agreed to a three-year extension, keeping him in Raleigh through the 2027-28 season.

In a lot of ways, there's enough irony to make you laugh with this situation.

When the Canes acquired Hall during the late hours of a Friday night in January, he wasn't an afterthought of a league-altering trade, but he was certainly the second fiddle in the blockbuster.

In one half of the deal, Rod Brind'Amour and co. were supposed to be getting a superstar player, one who they'd hoped would be the piece that got them over the hump and be a locker room mainstay for many years to come. What they got was not that.

And instead, it's the 2017-18 Hart Trophy Winner who embraced his new surroundings and tried to be the best player he could be for the organization that receives a multi-year extension.

"He's come in and just fit in. He's not trying to do too much. He's not trying to say, 'Hey, I'm a former MVP of the league.' He's come in and said, 'I'm just trying to fit in and do my part," Rod Brind'Amour said earlier this month. "I think that's actually been the key to it all."

His sixth team since the 2019-20 season, the now 33-year-old Hall admitted shortly after joining his new team that he'd had enough of bouncing around and hoped to be a part of the team for years to come.

"I'm kind of tired of switching teams. Me and my wife would love to find a spot and settle down. Hopefully that's Carolina," Hall said of the situation on January 28. "That's the mindset that you have to have when you join a team at this point in the season - that you're going to be here for a while. You have to invest yourself, and that's what I'm doing."

Hall has certainly been invested through his first few months with the club, chipping in 18 points in his first 31 regular-season games as he's learned a notoriously hard system to play on the fly. Including a hat trick in Anaheim on March 23, Hall has not only logged critical minutes for the team at five-on-five, but he's also been a tremendous presence on the man advantage, leading the team with four regular-season power-play goals since coming aboard.

"To be honest with you, I'm still learning things here and there," Hall admitted when he spoke to the media during Wednesday's afternoon hours. "I'm still learning the finer points of more or less our D-zone system, but the other two-thirds of the ice is about pressure and trying to get the puck back in our hands. That allows me to use my greatest strength, which is my skating... I've had a lot of fun getting to play with this team and the high-pressure system way that we play."

And as Hall's started to grasp the ins and outs of the way Brind'Amour wants to play, it's only become more enjoyable.

"The system that we play, it allows me to play with not a lot of thinking. It allows me to just go out there and hunt pucks and do all of the things that I think I'm pretty good at. That's why Carolina wanted to trade for me. They saw that I'm pretty good at playing that way and it's been a really good fit on and off the ice," Hall continued.

As Hall pointed out, it's not just the on-ice fit that has led the two sides to a multi-year marriage. He's made defensive plays that some wouldn't, and the way he speaks about his new teammates is clearly not that of a fleeting passenger.

After playing in his 900th NHL game and scoring during the contest in March, the 15-year pro showed a fond appreciation for the way his new locker room has embraced him.

"I'm getting up there. It's special to do that with these guys, and I'm having a blast, as you can probably tell," he explained post-game. "It's not 1,000 and it's not 1,500, but it's something I'll remember for a while."

The finalization of a long-rumored piece of business, Hall is now no longer just a one-season rental, trying to help the Canes reach their ultimate prize and go contract hunting this summer. He's going to try and be a part of a group that goes for it all this year, and again for three seasons after that.

"This team, right from the moment I got here, made me feel comfortable. The coaching staff pushed me, and the guys in the room have been just incredible at making me feel welcome and making me feel like this is a place that I want to play," Hall explained. "I feel very fortunate to be a Hurricane, and I can't wait to see what the future holds for us."