ERIK HAULA - Left Winger/Center - 28 - $2.75MM Cap Hit - UFA in 2020-2021
LAST UPDATED 8/28/19
Facing some serious salary cap troubles, the Vegas Golden Knights made the choice to ship Erik Haula, one of the best breakout stories of their expansion season, to Carolina. This was likely not a move that they wanted to make, but they simply needed to shed salary and despite Haula's value they had proven that they could win without him, as Haula faced major injury issues this past season that limited him to only 15 games played. Despite his inability to stay healthy this past season, I'm still very optimistic about Haula's future. Haula has decent size and strength for a forward, and uses a blend of that size and strength as well as well above-average speed to create enough time and space with the puck to score. Haula has a great shot and should be able to score 20 goals with consistency, even if he won't reach the 29 goals he scored in 2017-18. He's more of a shoot-first player who isn't quite as refined as a playmaker, meaning he won't exactly drive his line's offensive play, but he's strong enough and fast enough to create by himself and he has the versatility to fit on lots of different lines. 20 goals and 40 points is a reasonable expectation for post-injury Haula. Defensively, Haula has upside but hasn't quite gotten it all together. He's strong and can fight his way to pucks, but his positioning could stand to improve and he should not anchor a penalty kill. I still think he's a defensive plus thanks to that speed as a forechecker and his work ethic, but it's a small plus. Overall, Haula is a high-end third line scorer who can easily fit in on a second line if he can stay healthy and rediscover the scoring touch that brought him to such high heights as a Golden Knight.
Facing some serious salary cap troubles, the Vegas Golden Knights made the choice to ship Erik Haula, one of the best breakout stories of their expansion season, to Carolina. This was likely not a move that they wanted to make, but they simply needed to shed salary and despite Haula's value they had proven that they could win without him, as Haula faced major injury issues this past season that limited him to only 15 games played. Despite his inability to stay healthy this past season, I'm still very optimistic about Haula's future. Haula has decent size and strength for a forward, and uses a blend of that size and strength as well as well above-average speed to create enough time and space with the puck to score. Haula has a great shot and should be able to score 20 goals with consistency, even if he won't reach the 29 goals he scored in 2017-18. He's more of a shoot-first player who isn't quite as refined as a playmaker, meaning he won't exactly drive his line's offensive play, but he's strong enough and fast enough to create by himself and he has the versatility to fit on lots of different lines. 20 goals and 40 points is a reasonable expectation for post-injury Haula. Defensively, Haula has upside but hasn't quite gotten it all together. He's strong and can fight his way to pucks, but his positioning could stand to improve and he should not anchor a penalty kill. I still think he's a defensive plus thanks to that speed as a forechecker and his work ethic, but it's a small plus. Overall, Haula is a high-end third line scorer who can easily fit in on a second line if he can stay healthy and rediscover the scoring touch that brought him to such high heights as a Golden Knight.
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