Edmonton Oilers player review and 2021-22 preview: Gaetan Haas

Sail on, Gaetan.

The Oilers brought him to town on a flyer signing as a European player and for what it’s worth, he was a fine NHL’er. Sure, he didn’t provide much offensive flash but he didn’t need to as a fourth-liner.

Haas was just what the Oilers needed — a steady defensive forward. His underlying numbers were far from great, but I think you can point to the fact he started the majority of his shifts in the defensive zone and had a very low on-ice shooting percentage of just 4.95 percent — at least three to four percent off league average.

With him on the ice at 5×5, the Oilers controlled 43.56 percent of the shot attempts, 33.33 percent of the goals and 43.09 percent of the expected goal while posting a low 97.2 PDO. Again, a low shooting percentage is likely to blame for lots of this.

But his isolated impacts on the ice were solid. At 5×5, he provided offence at an 11 percent rate below league average and defence at a staggering nine percent above league average. Again, he was never asked to be an offensive weapon for the Oilers, so he did his job fine as a depth centre.

On top of that, he provided some good value on the penalty kill, where the Oilers expected goals against rate was 12 percent better than league average with him on the ice.

Earlier in the offseason Haas signed a five-year deal to return to Switzerland, thus ending his time in the NHL.