Yeah, exactly. The Friedman article specifically framed it as the players believing the trade was because of McDavid. Even if he was a downer (for a perfectly understandable reason, like the Oilers were a toxic work environment, or something else entirely) that's not the context from the players, which I think becomes the problem.

McDavid himself has also been pretty complimentary of Hall in several recent interviews, so there's that.

McDavid himself has been