Take a look at the score sheet, and you might think Taylor Hall was average at best for the Bruins on Sunday.
The second-line winger was held pointless and didn’t even register a shot on goal. He took a penalty, had two giveaways and even lost a pair of faceoffs to boot. That being said, the former Hart Trophy winner also had one of the most important plays of the series as the Bruins evened their Stanley Cup playoffs first-round series with the Hurricanes at two games apiece.
A lack of production didn’t stop Hall from finding a way to contribute. His biggest value add came early in the second period in the final seconds of a Bruins two-man advantage. Coming off the bench, Hall glided through the neutral zone and took a pass from Mike Reilly at the red line. Hall burst into the Carolina zone with a clean entry down the left wing.
Hall skated the puck all the way down the wall below the goal line and tried to find David Pastrnak in front. Hall’s errant pass was poked out of danger by Hurricanes defenseman Brady Skjei. The puck rolled right to Sebastian Aho, who quickly gathered it inside his blue line. As he turned, he immediatetly was joined by the recently freed Andrei Svechnikov, who hopped out of the box to form a two-man breakout for Carolina.
The Hurricanes duo darted up ice with a 2-on-1 developing. It appeared Reilly was Boston’s only hope of stopping what would be a back-breaking shorthanded goal. As things went from bad to worse, Hall appeared seemingly out of nowhere on the back-check. Reilly made a tremendous play to take away the shot and pass but even if there Svechnikov wanted to go to Aho, Hall had busted tail for 195 feet to get back in the play and take away the second option. Having Hall back in the play also made it easier for Reilly to commit.
It took Hall all of 5 seconds to go from this:
… to this:
The video of the spirited back-check is even more impressive, watching Hall’s powerful strides and impressive hustle get him back into the play.
While the Bruins didn’t trade for and extend Hall to back-check, it can’t be overstated how important this play was in the entire series. If the Hurricanes scored this goal, the Bruins’ season would likely have been on life support. Carolina is a near-flawless 44-1-0 this season when holding a two-goal lead at any point in a game. They are built on building leads and suffocating their opponent to death.
For a reminder in just how efficient they can be in that situation, go check out Games 1 or 2 of this series — or any of the three regular-season games between these two.
Carolina scoring on this play would have been demoralizing as it also would have been a punctuation mark on the Bruins’ power-struggles Sunday. The Bruins couldn’t score on their first four power plays and allowing a shorthanded goal — after having a 5-on-3 — would have left them reeling.
But Hall wasn’t going to let that happen. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this from Hall, either. His relentless hounding led directly to a Bruins goal during the Islanders series last season.
Hall got far more credit and attention for that play, and his postgame explanation is worth revisiting now.
“It can’t just be about offense and scoring goals,” Hall said last June. “If the offense is not gonna be there one night, you don’t want to affect the team negatively at the other end.”
Luckily for the Bruins, that hasn’t changed.
