Taylor Hall’s first full season in Carolina ended with the kind of reminder that never really leaves a contender: he still has plenty left to give.
The Hurricanes brought him in during January 2025, and even then his arrival didn’t draw the loudest reaction. What followed did enough talking for everyone. Carolina liked the fit so much that it locked him up with a three-year extension, keeping the former No. 1 pick in Raleigh for the next few seasons.
For much of the year, Hall’s role was still being sorted out. He wasn’t being asked to carry a top line anymore, but that hardly meant he was fading into the background.
He could move up and down the lineup, help on the power play and give the Canes a skilled depth threat every contender wants. In 2025-26, he did exactly that, and then some.
Hall’s regular season was his best in points since 2021-22, when he was with the Boston Bruins. He played 80 games, finished with 48 points and scored 18 goals, just missing the 20-goal mark again.
That put him seventh on the team in scoring. He also caught fire after the Olympic break, piling up 21 points in 23 games to close the year, and he was the team’s Masterton candidate.
He spent some early time on the fourth line alongside Mark Jankowski and Eric Robinson, and he also saw shifts with Jordan Staal and Sebastian Aho. But the group that stuck was Carolina’s second line with Logan Stankoven and Jackson Blake, a young trio that kept getting the job done when the stakes rose.
That line ended up being the Hurricanes’ best during the postseason. Hall was one of Carolina’s top four scorers in the playoffs, finishing second on the team and fourth in the league with 19 points in 19 games.
He also posted a league-best plus-14. He started the playoffs on a six-game point streak and had a team-high seven points against the Senators.
The goals came in big moments, too. Hall scored the first overtime goal of his postseason career in Game 2 against the Flyers.
He added nine points across the team’s four elimination games and put up three-point performances against Philadelphia and Montreal to finish those series. Then he scored the Cup-clinching goal to open Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final.
At 35 in November, Hall is still positioned to matter for the defending champions. There’s a strong case for Carolina to keep that second-line trio intact when the new season opens, especially after the way they clicked last year.
That said, the Hurricanes have shown they’ll change things when they need to, so Hall could wind up moving around the lineup again. Even so, he should continue to get time on the second power-play unit. His three power-play goals last season were one of the quieter parts of his year.
However his career has unfolded, it’s still a little strange to see a former MVP in a Hurricanes sweater. It’s also a pretty good one, because now he’s forever linked to the organization as a Stanley Cup champion. Hall is expected to reach 1,000 games in October, and 800 points is right there within reach, too.
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