New York Islanders Pros and Cons of Keeping Calvin de Haan

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NEW YORK, NY – NOVEMBER 16: Victor Rask #49 of the Carolina Hurricanes and Calvin de Haan #44 of the New York Islanders battle for the puck during the first period at the Barclays Center on November 16, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

Cons

The first obvious con is that Calvin de Haan wasn’t good enough to help this roster win in 2017-18, why would he do it in 2018-19?

de Haan is a perennial 20-25 point player. Sure, he’s generally a solid player. But not solid enough. For all his positive stats, he’s still a -1.3 relative Corsi-For. His giveaway per 60 was the fourth highest amongst defenseman on the team with a 2.53.

(Thanks to Corsica.Hockey for the stats)

Calvin de Haan is also a big penalty killer for the Islanders, netting an average of 2:22 on the PK this season. The Islanders PK was the worst in the NHL with a 73.2 percent efficiency.

Then consider how much it would cost to keep Calvin de Haan on the roster. In arbitration, last season, de Haan’s camp started negotiations at $5 million. Now, remember that the free agent market for defensemen that de Haan is on the verge of joining is weak.

de Haan is probably the second best player in the class and he’d be smart to leverage that when negotiating his next deal. A deal worth $4.5 to $5 million a year for somewhere between four to five years is absolutely in the cards

If they keep de Haan at that price point and for that term, the Islanders would be paying $16 to $16.5 million to Nick Leddy, a 34-year-old Johnny Boychuk and Calvin de Haan for the next four seasons.

Next: 10 Step Plan To Fix The Islanders

What do you do with Calvin de Haan? Do you keep him as the New York Islanders fourth defenseman or do you let him walk and try to bring in a bigger fish?