Taylor Hall was brought to New Jersey this summer to meet with season-ticket holders and get to know the fans of his new team. GM Ray Shero and coach John Hynes asked him to come in for an extra day so they could get acquainted with the talented forward they acquired in return for defenseman Adam Larsson.

They picked him up from his hotel and took him to breakfast for a chat. They wanted to get to know him a little better. They also wanted to share what they expected of him this season, what they wanted to see from him.

When the Devils coach walked away from that meeting, he left with a better understanding of how the trade impacted Hall.

“He was a motivated player,” Hynes said when we chatted on Monday. “I think he took being traded personally. There were some personal feelings there… a guy who has pride, plays hard, and had some real stock in Edmonton and being a solution there.”

The shocking day that included two blockbuster trades changed everything for Hall and Larsson. It did for Shea Weber and P.K. Subban too, dealt within the hour of each other.

In a scheduling quirk, the four teams involved in those trades will be squaring off this week with Weber in Nashville tonight and the Devils playing the Oilers on Saturday. In may be the next step in providing more closure to these deals, and it’s also another opportunity to evaluate the impact of those trades on each team.

On the day the trades were made, June 29, we issued grades immediately as part of an evaluation of these trades that will probably span years. As the season nears its halfway point, here are the midterm grades of these two monster trades: