Scott MacDonald
An already interesting Florida Panthers offseason is about to head into its most active stretch.
The NHL’s free agency period opens Oct. 9 at noon and according to Puckpedia.com, the Panthers have 12 NHLers currently under contract.
That leaves a lot of work — and some big decisions — for new GM Bill Zito.
With an estimated cap hit of roughly $59.8 million for next season’s Panthers — and with the NHL salary capped at $81.5 million — Florida has close to $22 million to work even after factoring in retained money, buyouts and Roberto Luongo’s early retirement recapture penalty.
The Panthers have five unrestricted free agents. Will they stay or will they go? Should they stay or should they go?
We’ll break it down player by player.
Today: Erik Haula
Next Up: Evgenii Dadonov
When the Florida Panthers traded away Vincent Trocheck, their 2011 third-round pick, the Panthers parted ways with a one-time perennial 20-plus goal, 50-plus point scorer. Trocheck had his best years in South Florida from 2015-2018, but a gruesome leg injury sidelined the center for two months of the 2018 campaign and Trocheck failed to score 10-plus goals and over 40 points in his next two shortened seasons in Florida. Perhaps a change of scenery was the thought process from then-Panthers GM Dale Tallon that led to the trade with Carolina that sent Trocheck to Raleigh in exchange for four pieces, with the centerpiece being center Erik Haula.
Not two weeks before Trocheck’s right leg injury, Haula suffered an eerily similar fate that sidelined him for basically the entire 2018-19 year. The 29-year-old center was coming off his career-best 29-goal campaign during Vegas’ inaugural season in the NHL only to have the season-ending injury halt all of his momentum the following year. Haula has not looked the same since.
Haula had scored 12 goals and 22 points in 41 games before being shipped from Carolina to Florida. The eventual pause of the season back in March meant Haula only saw seven games as a Panther before play resumed for the playoffs in August. In total, Haula has appeared in just 11 games as a member of the Florida Panthers. Now a pending unrestricted free agent, brand-new GM Bill Zito has a tough decision to make on re-signing the 29-year-old center.
Let’s take a deeper dive into the good, the bad and the ugly of Erik Haula and debate whether or not he should be re-signed.
The Good
The Panthers currently have two centers signed on for the 2020-21 season. And with not much talent available in the center department in this year’s UFA class, this bodes well for Haula and his contract negotiations.
While he managed just one goal in his 11-game stint with Florida this season and 12 goals with Carolina, Haula’s numbers this past season were the lowest since the 2014-15 season while a member of the Minnesota Wild. What he lacked in point production, he made up for with some sneaky good analytics numbers.
Of the Hurricanes players to play more than 40 games last season, Haula finished fifth among forwards with a 60 percent goals-for percentage and finished seventh on the team with a very respectable 55.40 CorsiFor percentage at all strengths. Haula’s goals-for percentage would place him in the top-three on the Panthers roster, while his CorsiFor numbers would place him sixth among Florida forwards.
Haula also had his best year from the faceoff dot this past season, winning nearly 55 percent of his draws.
The Bad
Haula’s dwindling production and suspect bill of health since his 2017-18 breakout season with Vegas is certainly concerning. If anything, if you’re GM Bill Zito, this obviously lessens his value a bit, making Haula a cheaper option in this new flat salary cap era.
Consistency issues are also cause for concern and it’s hard to tell if Haula could ever replicate the statistical run he and Vegas had in 2018. The small sample sizes we’ve had over the last two years doesn’t help his cause.
The Bottom Line
With so little depth at center in South Florida, and really no discernable upgrades in this year’s free agent market, it would make a whole lot of sense for Zito and the Panthers to issue Haula a contract this offseason.
Haula has had a rough go at it this past few years. While it may be tough for him to replicate the season he had in Vegas — the Panthers aren’t quite built as talented as the Golden Knights are…yet — there have been some positive indicators in his past two years.
At the start of the year, Haula rocketed out of the gate with seven goals in his first nine games before another injury kept him out for much of November and December. The season before that, Haula had six points in six games leading up to his season-ending knee injury.
The hope is that if he can stay healthy, it’s entirely possible the Panthers could have a 2017-18 Erik Haula on their hands. He could also be a strong veteran presence with deep playoff experience on a team that might start to get a little younger here in the next couple of years.
I think he’ll need to take a bit of a pay cut from the $2.75 million cap hit he’s coming off. I think it’d also be wise for Zito to go short term on this one…just in case.
Projected Contract: 2 years, $2.5 million AAV