New Jersey Devils player profile: Erik Haula

The 31-year-old figures to be an important part of the Devils' bottom-6.

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Now that the off-season action has simmered down, and most of the roster work has been complete league-wide, I’m beginning to dive into player profiles for each newcomer on the New Jersey Devils.

I profiled the $30 million man, Ondrej Palat, in the 1st edition of this mini-series.

Up next is Erik Haula, who was acquired from the Boston Bruins in exchange for Pavel Zacha.

Counting stats: 78 games played, 44 points (18 goals, 26 assists), 15:06 average time on ice

5v5 underlyings: 2.24 points/60, -3.49 CF% Rel, +9.44 GF% Rel, -2.48 xGF% Rel, 1.022 PDO

2021-22 review: Erik Haula is coming off arguably the best season of his career. With David Krejci out of the picture, the Boston Bruins had a big hole down the middle; and Haula adequately filled it.

He posted his highest goal and point totals since 2017-18 – the inaugural season of the Vegas Golden Knights – and was remarkably efficient at 5v5 while doing so.

Haula put up 37 points in that gamestate, which tied him with the likes of Roope Hintz, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and Andrew Mangiapane, for 37th in the NHL.

Playing a large chunk of time with Taylor Hall and David Pastrnak absolutely helped the cause. Those two no doubt factored heavily into such strong outputs. Haula does deserve credit for making the most of the opportunity at hand, though.

Haula wasn’t just a solid offensive contributor. His even-strength defensive game was worth +2.1 GAR, which would’ve ranked third among Devils forwards.