No. 1 pick well-kept secret By ROBERT TYCHKOWSKI, QMI Agency

Hall ready to step up for Oilers Future looks bright for young Oilers Oilers fans pumped for Taylor Hall the natural first choice It's Taylor Hall!

LOS ANGELES - It was the best kept secret in hockey.

The Edmonton Oilers locked away the answer to Tyler or Taylor in a vault and threw away the key.

And they didn’t even use one of the vaults that Dary Katz uses to stash his billions - even the owner didn’t know.

And the drama made the draft. They could have told everyone a month ago they were taking Hall when they settled on him at their scouting meeting. But what fun would that have been?

“The owner said he was hoping that at some point we would show him the list,” grinned Oilers president of Hockey Operations Kevin Lowe. “We kept from pretty much everybody, including our wives and kids.

“We liked the drama, we wanted to keep it as quiet as we could, and it should be exciting for the kids.

We liked to think that it was maybe our one time to shine - and hopefully it’s our only time.”

robert.tychkowski@sunmedia.ca