The Cult of Hockey’s Kurt Leavins is slowly turning into our own local Elliotte Friedman with his “9 Things” blogs. I find them incredibly informative and really entertaining. Especially when he drops little hints about the Edmonton Oilers as he did in his most recent post.

3. On the topic of Taylor Hall, there are a lot of people who want to know how many of the trades that Peter Chiarelli engineered were solely on him and which ones he received heavy influence on from within the organization. Chiarelli was on-board with the Hall trade or he would not have made it.

I firmly believe that Peter Chiarelli was brought in to make these trades (Hall/Eberle/Yakupov). I think that there were warning signs present and none of the men on hand were willing to be the guy that made the trade because they knew what would happen if they made a bad deal.

But I believe there were at least 3 loud voices within the Oilers organization at the time that all wanted Hall out. However none of those 3 men, including the G.M. Chiarelli, are still with the Oilers today.

So we know from previous “9 Things” posts that Todd McLellan OK’d the Hall trade. Hearsay has it that Hall missed a practise after getting to bed late the evening before and Coach Todd made it known that that wasn’t the kind of player he wanted on his team.

Who knows if that’s true or not but in all my years, I’ve never had so many ex-teammates come out publicly and say disparaging things about a player they played with WHILE that player was still playing. Eric Belanger, Oscar Klefbom, Ben Scrivens, Andrew Ference, and Georges Laraque all had things to say once Hall left town.

So the big mystery is who the third man was that green-lit that massive deal. It has to be someone that isn’t with the club anymore. Here are a couple of candidates that spring to mind:

• Kelly Buchberger – Bucky used to be an assistant coach for the Oilers and his relationship with the younger players (especially Eberle) was known. Elliotte Friedman brought it up when Buchberger was rumored to be joining Doug Weight’s coaching staff on Long Island. He’s also tight with Craig MacTavish as most of the OBC is.
• Andrew Ference – The Oilers “captain” made it pretty well known how he felt about “certain players” on the team and their practise habits on the 31 Thoughts Podcast.

So, if the captain of the team, the head coach of the team, and the GM of the team all agreed that Hall had to go… It would make sense for that trade to be made. I don’t think the coach or the captain thought the return would be what it was though.

Hall has just one more, full year remaining on his deal after this season. New jersey can’t afford to let him walk for nothing. Every team in the NHL should entertain acquiring…or re-acquiring him.

This notion of Taylor Hall coming back to Edmonton is a pipe dream. We have this thing called the salary cap and by the time Hall’s deal expires, the Oilers will need to re-sign quite a few of their own RFAs. They can entertain the idea all they want to but isn’t it time that the team finally stopped with the shortcuts and did this build the right way through drafting a development? Does anybody think Hallsy would be happy to come back to Edmonton for well below the going rate for an 80pt winger?

So what do you think? Do you have your own ideas as to who that third person was who combined with Todd McLellan and Peter Chiarelli to move Taylor Hall?

Let us know in the comments below!