Erik Haula

Last Season

Fourteen goals and 38 points in 81 games, on sixteen and a half minutes a night, with a minus-15 that reflects the assignments as much as the player.

The Finesse Game

A competent, unspectacular offensive player who has scored between twelve and twenty goals in most healthy seasons. He shoots accurately from the slot, he can make a play off the wall, and he does not turn the puck over in bad places.

The value is in the details. He wins faceoffs, he is reliable on the penalty kill, and he is comfortable taking a draw in his own zone with a lead in the third period. Those are the shifts that decide games and nobody notices who takes them.

The skating is good enough to keep up and not good enough to create.

The Physical Game

Five-eleven and 191, so not a physical presence, but he is a persistent one — he is on the right side of the puck, he blocks shots, and he takes the body when it is the right play. Sixty-four penalty minutes is more than a player of his size usually accumulates and reflects a certain amount of nuisance.

The Intangibles

Seventh-round pick, more than 840 games, and half a dozen organisations that have wanted the same thing from him. That kind of career happens to players who are trusted rather than talented.

He is thirty-five. The role — third-line centre, penalty kill, defensive draws — is one that survives a decline in foot speed better than most, which is presumably the thinking behind bringing him in.