When it comes to speculating a viable candidate to play second-line center, fans of the Buffalo Sabres have mostly (and correctly) had their sights set on the trade market. The unrestricted free-agent pool is relatively sparse this season, not to mention historically expensive. That being said, there are a few options that Kevyn Adams will likely consider, especially if his attempts on the trade market prove fruitless.

One of the bigger names who is expected to test the open market is Florida Panthers’ centerman, Erik Haula. After making a name for himself as a member of the expansion Vegas Golden Knights squad that reached the Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural season, his performance has been sporadic (and injury-riddled) ever since.

After posting a career-best 55 points in 76 games in 2017-18, he’s struggled to make an impact. Part of that issue is almost certainly correlated with the fact that Haula has missed more than 80 games due to injury over the last two years. Compounding on the concern is the fact that he’s dealt with multiple knee ailments in that span, which are notoriously difficult to fully recover from.

Let’s take a look at his underlying impacts, both before and after his first major injury (which caused him to miss most of the 2018-19 season with Vegas). Interestingly enough, during his time with the Minnesota Wild from 2013-2017, his defensive impacts were consistently strong. Since leaving Minnesota however, his xGA and shot-suppression metrics have been much more sporadic.

During his final season with the Wild, Haula ranked third on the team among forwards with an even-strength xGA/60 rate of 1.68.  The following year (his first with Vegas), that trend flipped, as he had the fourth-highest xGA/60 rate among Golden Knights forwards at 2.33.

On top of playing with different linemates, his responsibilities were greater with Vegas as he averaged nearly 90 seconds more ice-time per-game at five-on-five and saw his OZS rate reduced by eight-percent from the year prior. Still, that’s a pretty drastic change in xG rate, even when you consider the situational changes he faced.

To his credit, the following year (2018-19), he looked to be back to his defensively competent self, but given that he only skated in 15 games, it is unknown whether he would have sustained it.

One aspect of his game that remained relatively consistent leading up to the 2019-20 campaign is his offensive impact (or lack thereof). For as strong as he was in his end for the Wild, his metrics were conversely (and pretty equally) poor offensively. In his career, he’s only had two full seasons where his xGF rate was greater than his xGA rate. Both occasions came with Minnesota, the latest being three years ago.

The 2019-20 season was perhaps the most interesting of his career so far. Haula spent most of the year with the Carolina Hurricanes before being traded to the Florida Panthers at the trade deadline. In his 48 games-played between the two clubs, we saw a bizarre reversal of what had been a relatively consistent career trend, analytically.

As explained above, for the most part, Haula has been an above-average defensive contributor and a below-average offensive presence. This season, however, he produced perhaps his best underlying offensive impacts, while also posting by far his career-worst defensive numbers.

A 48-game stretch is a small sample in comparison to the entirety of his NHL career leading up to it. Still, it’s a large enough sample to raise an eyebrow at the results. Part of it likely has to do with skating most frequently with two wingers who also posted very poor defensive metrics in Ryan Dzingel and Martin Necas. Dznigel has produced some of the worst underlying defensive numbers among all forwards in the NHL since 2017.

In the time Haula spent with Dzingel and Necas, his OZS rate was roughly 64-percent. So, the Hurricanes’ coaching staff recognized their defensive shortcomings as a group and tried to put them in a more sheltered role. It still wasn’t enough to make them a neutral-impact trio, however, despite a strong xGF-rate.

The hope there was probably that Haula’s historically strong defensive game would help mitigate how bad his wingers were in that area. It did not result in the desired effect, and Haula’s numbers were perhaps dragged down in part as a result. The fact that Dzingel and Necas fared much better defensively while flanking Lukas Wallmark however, does not help support that argument.

So, let’s talk dollars and cents. According to Evolving Hockey’s contract projection tool, they anticipate Haula to command a four-year, $4.23 million AAV contract. That’s a very steep cost for what appears to be a slightly positive impact player, at best. In the right situation, he has shown he can be optimized, but he’s not a line-driving talent. Not even close.

The half-point per-game production is pretty consistent throughout his career (aside from the aforementioned “breakout” year with Vegas), but the dollars still aren’t justified, even if we strictly consider his base statistics. This is especially the case if you factor in the recent injury history.

While the surface numbers might lead one to believe that he could be a decent stop-gap second-line center, the anticipated term, and financial commands are not conducive. If Buffalo strikes out on the trade market, there are certainly worse options (like entering the 2020-21 season with Dominik Kahun as the second-line pivot, for instance), but inking Haula to a lucrative UFA deal should not be a high-ranking option within the Sabres’ front office.

Heatmaps courtesy of Hockeyviz

Linemate xG Chart courtesy of Charting Hockey

xG, TOI, and Teammate Metrics courtesy of Natural Stat Trick

Photo Credit: Christian Petersen/Getty Images