It’s officially the off-season [insert “it’s been 84 years” meme here]. With a Stanley Cup champion finally crowned, the real fun begins as teams start building to the 2024-25 Stanley Cup Final. Well, some teams got a bit of a head start. Meanwhile, here at the Raw Charge compound, we’re still looking at last season. The 2023-24 player reviews roll along, and today’s guest of honor is Calvin de Haan.
The Basics
Name: Calvin de Haan
Position: Defense
Counting Stats: 59 Games, 3 Goals, 7 Assists, 16:37 TOI
Extra Stats (5v5): 51.66 CF%, 50.76 SF%, 43.48 GF%, 51.77 xGF%, 54.45 HDCF%, 89.08 On-ice Save Percentage, 1.62 iXG
2023-24 Contract: 1 year, $775,000
Contract Status: Pending unrestricted free agent
The Charts:
The Review:
It’s kind of funny that we’re reviewing Calvin de Haan today since he recently posted this on Twitter:
The exchange started based on the rumor that de Haan was rumored to be interested in signing with his hometown Senators next season. His response is…not wrong. In a case where the eye test didn’t really meet the stats test, Calvin de Haan had a decent season, especially for someone making $775,000.
The 33-year-old was signed on the second day of free agency to compete for the left-side, third-pairing role, a job that he won out of training camp and held down for most of the season. There were some times when he bumped up to 20 minutes a night, especially when Mikhail Sergachev went on the injured list, but he also disappeared from the rotation, as he was a healthy scratch in nine of their last eleven games. He also appeared in just one of the playoff games.
When he was on the ice, he did what was pretty much expected, which is block shots and hit people. He wasn’t brought in to help with the offense, and he happily obliged as he had just three goals on the season, with one of those being an empty-netter. Still, his extended stats weren’t horrible on the defensive side, and early on in the season he fell into the groove of seeing just about everyone of his mistakes end up in the back of the net.
As the season continued, his play did slide and that could be part of the reason Coach Cooper elected to go with Emil Lilleberg and Nick Perbix on his off-side instead of playing de Haan, who, as far as we know wasn’t injured. Would it have been nice for de Haan to step up and play beyond the potential that he was signed for? Sure, but it would have been nice for Andrei Vasilevskiy and Sergachev to be healthy for the entire season.
It’s hard to criticize de Haan too much for, well, being Calvin de Haan. It would be like complaining that a dump truck isn’t faster than a sports car. He played the role the Lightning signed him to play, but on a year where everyone struggled to play defense for most of the season the well-traveled veteran didn’t step up.
He was basically a replacement-level player overall that was okay on defense, but his lack of offensive production dragged him down. In short, he was a third-pair defenseman. It’s unlikely the Lightning will bring him back for a second year.
Previous Reviews:
