Gaetan Haas signs one-year extension with Edmonton Oilers; where does that leave Riley Sheahan? – Edmonton Journal

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After weeks of radio silence, there’s been a buzz in recent days that the Edmonton Oilers might soon be back in the business of signing player contracts. Today the club confirmed that they have come to terms with Swiss centre Gaetan Haas on a one-year extension.

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Such releases always omit one crucial detail, or perhaps deliberately leave a crumb from the table for diligent reporters to follow up:

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That actually represents a tiny cut from the $925,000 Haas earned on the one-year Entry Level Contract he officially signed last Jul 01. That contract also included healthy performance bonuses which had the potential to boost him into the $1.5 million range. Presumably few if any of these bonuses were actually realized in a season Haas played 58 NHL games, scoring 5-5-10.

The re-up is a one-way pact according to the excellent CapFriendly, whereas his ELC had a minor league component of just $70k which kicked in briefly when the player was sent to Bakersfield for a short stint (2 GP, 0-1-1). The new deal leaves the Oilers the option of sending him down and burying all of his cap hit while still giving the player the security of an NHL pay cheque (or what’s left of it after escrow takes a big bite out of it).

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My Cult of Hockeycolleagues have been all over this player in the last couple of days. On Sunday, one of Kurt Leavins’ 9 Things was about Haas:

“Expect the Edmonton Oilers to re-sign pending UFA Gaetan Haas. The 28-year old Swiss center can hit the market July 1st. But in the post-COVID-19 NHL free agency will be severely compressed. With the supply of useful right-handed centers with Haas’s speed already limited, I believe the Oilers will employ the old “a bird in the hand” idiom and retain him. Haas arrived with a $925k cap hit. Expect a short-term deal to be in the same range.”

Leavins got this exactly right. Doesn’t get any shorter-term than one year, and the salary is certainly in the range. But Kurt’s key point in my view was the compression of the free agency period. Seems highly unlikely that will open up on Jul 01 this year, and by the time it does some other markets such as the very league Haas came from may be closed. None of those Euro leagues are looking to pick up a “paused” season so will be looking to sign players in the usual time frame. In the meantime NHL managers are restricted to talking to those players already under contract to their team until sometime after the fate of the 2019-20 season is resolved.

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Meanwhile David Staples followed up with a full post discussing the merits of a Haas extension and discussing the players pros and cons in some detail.

To me the key elements are his speed, his strong positional play and his right-handed stick. The latter makes him unique among the organization’s pivots, give or take Cooper Marodymaking a lot stronger bid for an NHL job next season than he did this. Other than the now-departed Sam Gagner, all others who spent time at centre in 2019-20 are lefties, from high-end players Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and  Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to fellow bottom-six grinders Jujhar Khaira, Riley Sheahanand the late Colby Cave. Haas is easily the quickest skater among the latter group.

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On the downside, while he demonstrated NHL speed right off the hop, NHL strength was another matter. He lost more than his share of battles and wound up on the seat of his pants more times than a few. Presumably this was one of a few lessons he learned of the narrow-ice game this season, and will surely be a focus of his current and future off-ice regimen. Ideally he would also work to improve a poor 42% win rate in the faceoff circle to make that righty stick a little more valuable.

Haas played a little under 10 minutes a game, over 95% of that time at even strength. He scored just 0.81 points per 60 minutes at 5v5, ranking 374th among the 398 NHL forwards who logged 300+ minutes. Marginal fourth-line production. That doesn’t include his first career point which came 4v4, a nifty set faceoff play and pass to Joakim Nygard for a key goal in a third-period comeback win over the Kings. His first career goal was equally key, as his deft deflection with under 5 minutes to play earned the Oilers a point with a chance for another vs. Arizona. He scored another tying goal in Boston that jumpstarted a comeback win. And while the game was already in the bag, his nifty penalty shot tally put the cherry on top of an 8-3 Oilers rout of the Flames .

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While the offence was spotty, the good news is he maintained his low-event ways at both ends of the rink. Haas was one of just two Edmonton regulars (Alex Chiasson being the other) who was on the ice for under 2 goals against per 60 minutes. No fluke either, given he also had the best rate of Expected Goals Against (xGA/60). That’s a decent outcome given the bottom six’s primary role of maintaining the status quo while the top players catch their wind on the bench. Literally 98% of his 5v5 time came without either McDavid or Draisaitl on the ice. With that in mind, a neutral +/- of -1 seems acceptable. All the more so when you factor in his ability to draw penalties (14) while staying out of the box himself (just 3 minors). That alone had to be worth 3 or 4 goals to the Oil.

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I do get the impression he’s more versatile than Oilers fans have seen to this point. He came from Switzerland with a reputation as a special teams whiz, playing point on the powerplay and a threat to score while shorthanded. He got little enough chance to contribute to special teams in Edmonton, and with both units crushing it all season there was no reason to change things up. But I’m guessing by Year 2 he will have earned a little more trust from his coach to earn a little time on one or both special teams. I also speculate he’d do fine on the wing if the need were to arise. This season the Oilers needed that righty centre, and he was it.

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Next season they will still need one, and in Haas they will now have something of a known commodity, which is more than we could have said last summer. He joins a growing list of players signed by Holland since January. Two of them were among the passel of forwards he signed to one-year deals last summer, Joakim Nygard and Josh Archibald.  Add Gaetan Haas to that list. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that all three addressed in a very positive way the identified need for team speed. Indeed, every one of the guys Holland has re-upped in 2020 — Nygard, Archibald, Haas, Caleb Jones, Darnell Nurse, Zack Kassian — can really motor.

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Roster taking shape

A look at the updated Oilers projected roster, with signed players highlighted:

I don’t see team speed as an issue any more; do you?

Looking specifically at the centre position, only Riley Sheahan remains unsigned at this time. Sheahan has changed agents and there are rumblings from unverified sources that he may be pricing himself out in contract negotiations. He is, after all, a player who was north of $2 million for the prior three seasons before finding himself without a contract all last summer. Holland finally got him at a bargain price in early September. Whether he’s willing to extend without a significant raise and perhaps term like his sidekick Archibald is an open question.