Taylor Hall Jersey Card

The most coveted forward in this off-season's free agency, Taylor Hall, will go through the process again next year, as he's agreed to a one-year deal worth $8M with the Buffalo Sabres.

You may recall him saying he was looking to win and that a large paycheque was not the top thing on his shopping list, that he was looking for stability...

While this move makes his previous comments seem a tad hypocritical, bear in mind that most contending teams are tight against the cap this year with a flat cap looming over GMs' heads for the next couple of seasons - and few of them were looking to make trades to make room to add salary, save perhaps for the Toronto Maple Leafs, who already have arguably three better forwards on their roster and instead need to find a way to keep pucks out of their own net at this point.

So instead, Hall is betting on himself, hoping he gets to line up with Jack Eichel, that neither of them gets injured, and that they can pad each other's statistics enough for Hall to force himself to an even greater payday next summer. If all the stars align, the Sabres can win it all in 2020-21, but that's going to take a near-miracle. Hall's semi-realistic hope is to crack the 100-point mark with Eichel to parlay his way onto a stacked team like the Tampa Bay Lightning, Washington Capitals, Boston Bruins, Vegas Golden Knights, St. Louis Blues, Winnipeg Jets, Colorado Avalanche or Vancouver Canucks.

I, for one, expect the market to remain essentially the same next time around, however, with GMs going for safe, reasonable bets.

Here is Hall wearing the New Jersey Devils' red (home) uniform, on card #24 from Upper Deck's 2017-18 Premier set, which I got in a trade last summer for a card of his wearing the Edmonton Oilers' blue uniform:

It features a matching game-used piece of "memorabilia" (as per the back, the front specifies it's a jersey). The actual card has the foil at the bottom in pure silver, the scan rendered it beige.