The Boston Bruins on Friday announced they signed Taylor Hall to a new contract. But the deal -- a four-year contract worth $6 million annually -- was something the winger had on his mind for a long time.
Hall said Friday that he knew early into his tenure with the Bruins that he wanted to stick around for a while.
"I knew right away, after playing five or six games in Boston, I wanted to be a part of the group and it was up to me to try to play well and show up well enough to have them want me to be a part of it," he said on a Zoom media conference.
Hall, who joined the team via trade from the Buffalo Sabres at the deadline, said he thought the Bruins were capable of more than their second-round exit in the Stanley Cup playoffs, and the disappointing end confirmed the wanted to return for another season.
"The season didn’t end the way we wanted it to -- I think, we could have been right there," he said. "We could have been in the Finals. We could have been in the conference finals easily, it just didn't happen, we got beat by a team that had some great parts on their team, they had some great players. But I feel like that series, if we played it over again, I know every team says that, but it could have gone either way. That's the frustrating part and I kind of left the taste in my mouth that I wanted to come back and do it with the same group. That's how I feel today, that's how I feel every day when I'm training for the season. I try to be my best when the time comes and the playoffs, and that’s what I'm looking forward to next year."
Hall likely could have had competitive offers had he decided to pursue free agency, but he said he has no regrets about returning to Boston. The 29-year-old will have some stability in his career for the first time in years, having played on four separate teams since the start of the 2019-20 season.
The Bruins have some more work to do in the offseason, but locking up Hall is a major step toward accomplishing the deeper postseason run he believes the team is capable of.
