The New Jersey Devils have officially announced that Taylor Hall underwent arthroscopic knee surgery this week, and will begin rehab immediately. Hall’s recovery timeline has not been announced, as it depends on how he responds to rehab in the coming days and weeks.
It’s not clear if Hall will be ready to play again this season, but at this point you couldn’t blame the Devils for shutting him down entirely. The team is well out of the playoff race and will be competing once again for the right to draft first overall in June. Hall’s presence would hurt those chances and while no team is actually hoping for losses, if there is any slight risk of re-injury there seems little point to risk his health.
The reigning Hart Trophy winner went down to injury just before Christmas after scoring 37 pints in 33 games and hasn’t been able to get back into a game since. That means his season will likely finish as the lowest-scoring year of his career, and get him even closer to unrestricted free agency without anything to show for the Devils. Hall has just one season remaining on his current contract that carries a $6MM cap hit, which means he is eligible for an extension on July 1st. It’s not clear just how big of a raise he’ll be looking for, but after scoring 130 points in his last 99 games his average annual value could approach eight digits.