Center Erik Haula is among the list of pending unrestricted free agents that the Devils will have to re-sign or replace this summer but if he has his way, he won’t be going anywhere. Speaking at his end-of-season media scrum (video link), the 32-year-old indicated that he doesn’t want to play for another team and relayed that in his meeting with GM Tom Fitzgerald earlier today. Haula came over in an offseason swap last year with Boston and was a capable secondary producer, notching 14 goals and a career-high 27 assists during the regular season before adding six more points in their 12 playoff contests. Haula should be in line for a raise from the $2.375MM AAV on his expiring contract, especially with the UFA market being weak down the middle.
Elsewhere in the East:
- CapFriendly clarified (Twitter link) that the conditional third-round pick that the Hurricanes will receive from the Flyers this year as part of the Anthony DeAngelo trade is the best of Philadelphia’s three third-round selections, not the lowest as originally believed. Accordingly, Carolina will pick up Philadelphia’s own pick, slotted 71st overall. The Flyers still owe the Hurricanes one more selection as part of the swap, their 2024 second-round choice.
- Hurricanes winger Teuvo Teravainen was at practice today as Carolina prepares for the Eastern Conference Final. However, as Chip Alexander of the Raleigh News & Observer notes (Twitter link), the 28-year-old remains in a non-contact jersey. Teravainen has been out for nearly a month since undergoing wrist surgery and is coming up on the early part of the four-to-eight-week recovery timeline. With him skating, it’s possible that he could be back at some point in this series which would be a big boost to their attack even with him having a quieter regular season than usual when he had 37 points in 68 games.
- While Detroit was able to lock up Dylan Larkin to a max-term extension before the trade deadline, they weren’t able to do so with Tyler Bertuzzi, resulting in him being moved to Boston. MLive’s Ansar Khan notes that the Red Wings only were willing to offer the pending UFA a four-year extension. However, in a thin free agent market and on the heels of a strong showing in the playoffs with 10 points in seven games, it’s quite likely that the 28-year-old will be able to get a longer-term contract in July (or earlier, if the Bruins able to free up cap space to re-sign him).
I will never understand the fascination that some GMs have with Bertuzzi, Often injured, Nearly 30 years old, under 300 games as an NHLer, And under 100 career goals right now I’d say he is worth about 3 million annually with a very short 2 year deal. He’s simply a bad investment.
And that would be true before there were 32 teams in the league. But with talent so hard to come by now, the league is Bertuzzi’s oyster.
Bert will get 5x $6M on the open market, unless he takes a discount to stay with Boston.
He isn’t going to stay in Boston. The impending retirements of Krejci and most likely Bergeron will put an onus on Boston to get a top 2 center and they don’t have a lot of cap room.
It’s really inconceivable that the Flyers owe anything for Tony DeAngelo! He sucks!!!
That trade was another master stroke by Don Waddell!
Or mulligan by Fletcher who is only exceeded as being the worst GM in NHL history by Mike Dingleberry.
It’s really inconceivable that the Flyers owe anything for Tony DeAngelo! He’s awful!!!
We all know Haula is signing with the Rangers so he can get eliminated by the Canes for the fourth year in a row on four different teams.