The Downfall of Erik Haula as a New Jersey Devil
The 33-year-old's game has taken a turn for the worse over the past couple of seasons. What gives?
When the New Jersey Devils first sent Pavel Zacha to the Boston Bruins in exchange for Erik Haula, it felt like I had gone through the five stages of grief. First was denial, a sort of “No way they finally actually got rid of this guy (Zacha).” I’d grown tired of watching him miss empty net after empty net on scoring chances and was ecstatic at the idea of him being gone. Then there was anger — the guy was drafted fifth overall and all the Devils could get back was a third-line center? I understand Zacha didn’t live up to hit potential, but really?
Bargaining. Okay. Maybe it won’t be so bad. Haula had just come off an 18-goal, 44-point season with the Bruins and had scored as many as 29 goals and 55 points before. Zacha had never surpassed 17 goals or 36 points. This could work out for the Devils if he continues to bust. Then came depression — man, he, Nico Hischier, and Jesper Bratt were pretty close. I hope it doesn’t affect their games as much as I think it could (it didn’t). Acceptance was of course last; there was nothing I could do about it, so may as well enjoy the ride.
By the end of the first season of the trade, it looked like a win-win. On one hand, Zacha had now produced a career-high 21 goals and 57 points playing in the top six of a record-breaking Boston team. On the other, Haula was quietly having an excellent season with the Devils, contributing meaningfully to the Devils’ middle six, being a complement to Jack Hughes, and sliding to the third-line center role when needed.
Flash forward two seasons, and I’ve returned to denial. I can’t believe GM Tom Fitzgerald made that trade in retrospect. I can’t believe Zacha of all players is going to make me eat crow. I can’t believe Zacha is Boston’s first-line center and not playing poorly.
I can’t believe how bad Haula has been.
Of course, hindsight is 20-20, but Zacha is on his way to a third-straight 45+ point campaign while Haula hasn’t scored a single point since November 25 and has just 11 on the season. He’s consistently been one of the worst Devils forwards night in and night out.
Without further ado, let’s get into the how and why Haula’s game has taken a turn for the worse:
What Went Right in 2022-23?
As I said, 2022-23 was a genuinely good season for Haula — perhaps the best of his career from an underlying standpoint. The point totals were the third-best of his career, but his expected goal share (xGF%) of 56.70% was the best of his career and he was producing more expected goals for per hour (xGF/60) than he had in any other season. With him on the ice, the Devils controlled 55.62% of the scoring chances and over 58% of the high-danger chances. By all underlying accounts, he was excellent.
He spent the majority of the season on J. Hughes’ wing, something that took me a while to warm up to. With Jack being a general liability in the faceoff dot, Haula would take the faceoffs and then in the flow of play, switch back to the wing and let Jack do the heavy lifting in transition and position himself at center as he usually does. Of his 1038:04 of 5v5 hockey that season, Haula spent nearly half of it — 462:46 — in this role.
Together, the two were wildly successful. Their xGF% surpassed 60%, they controlled 58.66% of the shot attempt share (CF%), 60.08% of the actual shot share (SF%), 59.10% of the scoring chance share (SCF%), and 61.90% of the high-danger chance share (HDCF%).
Things were even better when Jesper Bratt was added as the third member of that line. The trio spent 182:49 together and were arguably the best line in hockey during that time. Their actual goal share was “just” 10-6, but they controlled a ridiculous 72.60% of the expected goals. They were producing nearly 4 xG per hour while allowing just 1.47. Their CF% was 66.67%. Their SF% was 68.60%. Their SCF% was 67.37%. Their HDCF% was 74.19%.
Absolutely. Dominant.
Looking at these microstats, one thing becomes abundantly clear: Haula simply cannot drive his own line. He didn’t exit the zone at all, nor did he carry the puck on zone entries. Even in a strong 2022-23, he was completely unable to move the puck in transition and relied on the much more able Jack Hughes (or Jesper Bratt) to do so.
Once the puck is actually in the zone, he’s a fine-to-good player and an apparently excellent complement to the young stars. Haula was a merchant of the transition gurus, being able to put himself in open space to get shots off at a higher clip than he had in his career. He was especially effective as the second forward in an odd-man rush opportunity. Jack or Bratt would consistently execute high-danger give-and-goes with Haula, with the latter of the three producing a higher-than-league-average amount of shots off of high-danger passes and being one of the better forwards in terms of rush offense as a whole.
This boils down to his general success when playing with playdrivers, though, and his lack thereof when away from them. Hell, even when Haula played with Jesper Boqvist (who is sorely missed on this current Devils team), he was the benefactor of being a passenger to the speedy playdriving center.
What’s Gone Wrong Since?
As I said above, Haula needs to be paired with a strong playdriver to have success because he’s largely unable to play that role on his own. He is a weak zone exiter and an even weaker zone enterer. This mostly just results in him getting possession of the puck in the defensive zone and either not knowing what to do with it or just clearing it out of harm’s way and completely nixing any offensive opportunities that can arise from a controlled possession.
The problems really started to rear their ugly heads when Jack went down with an injury last season and Haula was forced to carry his own line. Even last season, when with Jack, Haula had strong underlyings. They weren’t quite as good as they were in 2022-23, but those were probably unsustainably great and they were still an effective duo in the subsequent year. The results, believe it or not, were practically just as stellar when with both Jack and Bratt.
Once Jack went down, Haula was relegated to lines sans playdrivers. He had no consistent minutes with anyone because the results were generally middling, and had a revolving door of Curtis Lazar, Alex Holtz, Dawson Mercer, Nate Bastian, and Ondrej Palat — none of whom are able to drive play on their own. His xGF% was still strong for the season (55.35%) but that was largely due to his strong defensive work rather than what he was able to do on the other side of the ice:
His microstatistical profile also took a huge hit — particularly from an offensive standpoint — because of this:
Yikes. The only part of his offensive game that wasn’t abysmal was high-danger assists, but the rest of it was straight down the gutter. The one thing that stayed consistent was the complete inability to bring the puck from zone to zone.
This season, which he has spent entirely in the bottom six attempting to drive play on his own lines, has been a complete and utter trainwreck. His three most common teammates — Paul Cotter, Dawson Mercer, and Tomas Tatar — profile similarly to himself in that they’re generally passengers who are at their best when they’re not required to bring the puck from zone to zone and are generally struggling when forced to do so. Unsurprisingly, Haula’s xGF% on the season is comfortably below the 50% threshold and the point production just isn’t there. In terms of game score, Haula has been the Devils’ worst forward this season, even worse than Kurtis MacDermid.
I’m not going to sit here and complain about what he does in the defensive zone — he’s sturdy at preventing the opposition from getting many quality chances and always has been a two-way player. The problem area is that he’s unable to do literally anything in the neutral zone or offensive zone.
It’s a lot bluer than it was last season, sure, but the concerns are still prevalent and I think this vibe is given more so because of that monstrous one-timer per 60 line. Haula is doing that more than just about every NHLer, which is all fine and dandy except for the fact that when combined with in-game context, you realize that this is literally the only thing he’s providing offensively. The shots per 60 minutes and shots off high-danger passes per 60 minutes can all be traced back to that inflated one-timer rate, and that’s misleading in the sense that those one-timers happen once a game, during the few seconds that he actually spends in the offensive zone.
The other facets of his game that are “strong” need required context, too. For example, while his failed exit percentage is decently strong, it doesn’t really matter because he is barely exiting the zone at all. So sure, when he does exit the zone he does so with success, but he rarely ever does. The same story is relevant for his controlled entries with chances percentage — it’s a good percentage of his controlled entries, but he barely ever has those, as indicated by the zone entries per hour being way, way in the negatives.
What to Do Next
While my gut instinct is to implore the Devils to send Haula and his contract packing to some other team to carry, there is a legitimate argument that he, much like Mercer, just needs the right deployment. If I were head coach Sheldon Keefe, I’d revisit partnering Haula up with Hughes instead of having Palat in the first-line left-wing role. They’ve played just 12:52 together this season, but have controlled 70.02% of the xGF% and produced a mind-boggling 6.89 xGF/60. Again, minuscule sample size, but the results in that ridiculously low TOI were encouraging.
If that isn’t the move, I think it’s a necessity that the Devils move off this contract in the offseason. I’m positive they’d have to send a pick with it to the team that takes him, but having his $3.15 million off the books would pay dividends in actually allowing the team to make meaningful moves for either multiple contributors in the bottom six or giving space for part of a top-six winger for Jack and Bratt.
At the end of the day, while I think Haula is a stand-up character and have all the respect for him in the world after what he dealt with in Carolina, he’s still been arguably the worst player on the team this season and the Devils should probably look to ship him out. At the very least, he should be tried out alongside the two players he’s had the most success with in his tenure in New Jersey. There’s no reason the lines can’t look like this for a game or three:
Erik Haula - Jack Hughes - Jesper Bratt
Timo Meier - Nico Hischier - Stefan Noesen
Paul Cotter - Dawson Mercer - Ondrej Palat
Tomas Tatar - Justin Dowling/Curtis Lazar - Nate Bastian
Facts are facts. I think it’s worth a try to put Haula back with Jack & Bratt.