Rumblings are beginning that Taylor Hall is slumping, and it's made worse because Tyler Seguin has been tearing it up over in Boston this year, with 20 points in 16 games. Did the Oilers pick the wrong man? In a word: nope.
First let's look at the stats:
Hall: 16 games played, 3-8-11, Even
Seguin: 16 games played, 11-9-20, plus-15
At first glance it appears that Seguin is tearing Hall a new one in the heads up comparison, but there are a few things to consider here. First of all, Tyler Seguin is scoring on 22.4% of the shots he's taken so far. That is a percentage that is simply not sustainable. Seguin has taken only 6 more shots than Taylor Hall, but he's scored 8 more goals.
Taylor Hall is scoring on just 7% of the shots he's taken so far and has 3 goals. Over their two short NHL careers, Hall has a shooting percentage of 10.9% and Seguin's is 12.2%. If they were each scoring at their career average percentage, Seguin would have six goals and Hall would have five.
It's also important to remember that Tyler Seguin is playing on a team that won the Stanley Cup last year and didn't have an enormous amount of turnover on the roster, but Taylor Hall is playing on a team that finished 30th with a center that has just 17 games of NHL experience. Nugent-Hopkins is a very good player, but he's still a raw rookie. Ironically, being a linemate of RNH has meant that Hall has been sheltered much more than he was last year, and his average ice time has suffered by a full minute per game.
Despite all that, Hall actually is doing better than last year. After 16 games last season Hall had accumulated 3-4-7, and a minus-7, while this year has has 3-8-11 and is an Even player. Even though he wasn't scoring a ton to start last year, he ended with 22 goals in 65 games. Last year he had three stretches of seven games without a goal and still his scoring was strong overall. This eight game drought is a minor blip.
Taylor Hall is going to be fine. Just saying.
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