Taylor Hall’s backyard shinny made him a shining leader in Edmonton

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For Taylor Hall, it all started on the rink his father flooded behind their house in southern Alberta. Taylor spent hours on the ice there as a kid, avoiding the big poplar in the middle he imagined was the punishing Scott Stevens, imitating the moves of his favourite player, Jarome Iginla.

"That backyard rink was so awesome," Hall says. "I didn't have any brothers and sisters, so I usually was out there doodling around by myself. It is where I really got better and learned to play the game. I am so grateful to my dad."

Now 24 and an alternate captain of the Edmonton Oilers, Hall enters Saturday night's game in Pittsburgh among the NHL's scoring leaders.

He is also growing into a behind-the-scenes role as a luminary in the dressing room.

In just one example, he took on Connor McDavid as a roommate before the season.

Hall, a fellow No. 1 draft pick, has experienced some of the same things as the sensational 18-year-old rookie. As a veteran of four NHL seasons, he believes there is wisdom he can impart.

"As soon as we won the lottery, I started thinking about taking Connor under my wing and asking him to move in with me," Hall says. "I wanted to act responsibly and be a role model for him. As you get older, you find out what kind of leader you are. I am not going to say it has changed my life, but it has been good for me."

Hall has been the best Oiler on the ice since McDavid broke his collarbone crashing into the boards on Nov. 3. His growth as a player and his budding maturity can be traced to the rink fashioned by his father, a former Canadian Football League player. Perseverance born from solitude bred characteristics of a natural leader that would emerge in time.

That time seems to be now.

"All sports are the same," says his dad, Steve Hall. "You prepare properly and are calm but ready. Early on, it is easier to be hesitant the higher the pressure is. Now, he is not afraid."

A wide receiver and defensive back who could run 40 yards in 4.5 seconds, Steve Hall was drafted in the fourth round in 1983 by the Edmonton Eskimos. He reported to camp with Warren Moon but was dealt to Winnipeg before he ever caught one of the Hall of Fame quarterback's tight spirals. Stops in Toronto and Ottawa followed before a balky hamstring led Hall to call it a career.

Settling in Calgary, he became a brakeman and driver for the Canadian bobsleigh team, during which time Taylor was born. The boy played organized hockey for the first time at five, but it wasn't until much later, after innumerable hours of lonesome shinny, that he began to shine.

"He was able to go out whenever he wanted and that's what he did," Steve Hall says. "I made him a rink to give him freedom. He was able to try things without anybody watching, and that's how he got good. It was the time of Taylor's life."

When nobody else was around, Steve Hall went out and played goalie for his son.

"I did it until I got a puck between the eyes, and my wife told me I had to stop," he says. "I'm a brave guy. I would drive a bobsled at 100 miles per hour, but getting hit with a puck wasn't fun."

'I knew he was special'

At 16, Taylor Hall joined the Windsor Spitfires as the second player drafted in the Ontario Hockey League, and less than a year later was featured in Sports Illustrated in an article that profiled athletes poised to become stars in a variety of sports.

"Every mom thinks their kid is the best, but once he hit juniors I knew he was special," says Taylor's mother, Kim Strba.

Hall scored a team-high 45 goals and was named the Canadian Hockey League rookie of the year in his first season, then led the Spitfires to Memorial Cup titles the next two years.

A little more than a month after he won the second, the Oilers chose him with the first selection in the NHL entry draft. He was in the lineup on opening night when Edmonton took on the Calgary Flames in October, 2010, and has never once played in the minor leagues.

Playing on a team that has almost always been last or near it, Hall has done well since then, finishing in the top 10 in scoring twice. To suggest that it has been easy, however, would be misguided. He has missed 77 games with injuries in his first four seasons, and has had to constantly adjust to new head coaches.

Todd McLellan is Edmonton's fifth head coach in as many years; if the Oilers miss the playoffs again, it will be for the 10th consecutive year.

"It's hard not to get upset when you are constantly losing," Hall says. "You take it pretty personally. But you learn that no one person is going to take you to the Stanley Cup. It is a team thing, and it is up to all of us. I would like to see more progress, but I think we are changing the way we play. We are almost there."

After spotting the Canadiens a three-goal lead on Oct. 30, the Oilers roared back for a 5-4 victory. The following night, they rallied from a two-goal deficit to tie Calgary in the final seven minutes, only to lose with nine seconds left.

At one point, they played five consecutive games that were decided by one goal; on Monday night in Washington, they lost 1-0 after surrendering another late goal.

"I am tired of not putting points in the bank, but I am satisfied with the progress," McLellan said after the loss to the Capitals. "The improvement is there. It hasn't always been enough to get points, but they will come."

McLellan, who came to Edmonton after eight years in San Jose, says he appreciates Hall more as his head coach than he did from the opposing side. "I see him drive our team on a nightly basis," he says. "There are things you don't see from another team's bench. He has a real strong passion for hockey."

'We didn't have time to let them grow'

Even as the Oilers struggled to a 29-44-9 record, Taylor Hall registered a career-high 80 points during the 2013-14 season. He finished in a sixth-place tie with Toronto's Phil Kessel in NHL scoring, was eighth with 53 assists and fifth in the league with an average of 1.07 points per game.

"We were not a great possession team and were getting out-chanced every night, but Taylor was able to put up those numbers," says Dallas Eakins, the Oilers' former head coach. "For him to have that kind of a season was impressive."

Fired 31 games into the 1014-15 season, Eakins says he wonders whether Hall and some of the Oilers' other young prospects were best served by being placed immediately in the NHL. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Nail Yakupov, the No. 1 picks in 2011 and 2012, also bypassed the minor leagues.

"It was unfortunate for the guys in Edmonton," says Eakins, now the coach of the Ducks' AHL affiliate in San Diego. "All those players with little experience had the weight of the world on their shoulders. We didn't have time to let them grow.

"If you took our lineup and tried to match it up against the experience of other teams, it was difficult. But what's going to happen is that all of those players are going to mature, and it will be hard for anyone else to match up against them. The whole crop should get better, both individually and as a team."

As he has become a better leader, Hall has also become a better player.

"I think he is excited," says his agent, Jeff Jackson. "He is at a point in his career where he wants to take a leadership role. Some guys don't step up, but others do. It just takes time."

Each off-season, Hall returns to his family's home in Kingston, Ont., to train with his father and work toward better results. As part of Taylor's training, Steve Hall tosses passes as Taylor runs wide-receiver routes. He jokes that his son is so good that he should try out for the Eskimos.

"I think the Oilers' ship is going to turn," Steve Hall says. "It just hasn't happened yet. I think before too long, Taylor is going to drag the Oilers screaming and kicking into the fight. And when they get there, they are going to win some of those fights."