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There are scenarios under which trading Taylor Hall would be a positive move for the Edmonton Oilers, but it’s a dangerous road for the team to go down. At its best, such a deal would a tradeoff which damages the Oilers in one position while improving another. At its worst it could cost the team a Stanley Cup.

That last sentence is undoubtedly premature for a team which has spent the last decade aspiring to mediocrity, but that doesn’t make it any less true. The end goal of all the suffering that Edmonton fans have gone through since 2006 has always been a championship, and the prospect of attaining that goal is far more realistic for a team that retains both Connor McDavid and Hall than it is for a club with only one of those two players.

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For a team as far away from the Cup as the Oilers are, it’s easy enough to lose sight of the bigger, long-term picture, but let’s look past all the immediate fires that need to be put out and imagine two scenario in which Edmonton has solved them: One where the team has kept Hall., and one where it hasn’t.