Stanley Cup Final Announcer Sean McDonough Calls Former Devils Star Taylor Hall The Top Story
· Yahoo Sports
In the midst of a lot of off-season drama is the Stanley Cup Final between the Carolina Hurricanes and the Vegas Golden Knights.
The series enters Saturday's Game 3 with a 1-1 tie. Each team had a multi-goal comeback through the first two games, which is the first time that's happened in the 108-year history of the Stanley Cup Final.
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Through all that madness are a lot of other great storylines that don't get the attention they deserve. One of them, according to ESPN's number one play-by-play announcer Sean McDonough, is former New Jersey Devils superstar and MVP Taylor Hall.
Hall has made a handful of stops since departing the Devils organization, but he is finally in the perfect spot with the Carolina Hurricanes. He has been one of their best forwards during the Stanley Cup Playoffs and is in the mix for the Conn Smythe Trophy.
A strong finish to the series for Hall and a Hurricanes win would give him a chance to take home that hardware.
McDonough has the opinion that Hall is the top story that doesn't get enough attention, mostly because of what he's gone through in his up-and-down NHL career.
"Here's a guy who's 34, No. 1 overall pick, he's been on seven different teams, has kind of had a lot of ups and downs in recent years," McDonough said on Hall when asked about the most underrated storyline. "He was a fourth-line player at the start of this year as a former league MVP, Hart Trophy winner, accepted it gracefully, and worked his way up to now being on the line that's been the best in the playoffs. He's their leading point scorer, and he's third in all the playoffs in points.
So I think his story to me would be the one that hasn't been told. The hard part for us, we talked about this before on the broadcast, there's no time for almost any storytelling.
There’s no adequate amount of time in hockey to tell those stories. Taylor Hall was a first round pick, league MVP, seventh team, fourth line, blah, blah, blah. The puck's in the net while you're in the middle of that sentence.
That's one of my frustrations, a little bit with hockey play-by-play. I love the pace of it. That's part of what makes it as fun as it is, but there's very little time, unfortunately, to tell stories like that one."
There are Taylor Hall fans still remaining in New Jersey. He is the only Hart Trophy winner in the history of the franchise after all. A team that had Martin Brodeur, Scott Stevens, Scott Niedermayer, Zach Parise, Ilya Kovalchuk, and Patrik Elias, amongst others, over the years, doesn't have another MVP.
There is no denying McDonough's claim about Hall being a top underrated story. If he wins the Cup and the Conn Smythe, that would give him a borderline Hall of Fame resume, which shouldn't be ignored.
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