Islanders Meet in Middle With de Haan

The New York Islanders finished up their restricted free agent to-do list on Wednesday, avoiding an arbitration case with defenseman Calvin de Haan, signing him to a 1-year, $3.3 million deal.

The 26-year old defender had arbitration rights and the gap between the two sides was reported to be quite substantial and the player and team met right around the middle and then the defenseman will hit the unrestricted free agent market next summer, if an extension isn't agreed upon beforehand.

It was a pool worthy campaign for de Haan in 2017, as he finished the season with 5 goals and 25 points in all 82 games for the Islanders, which was good enough for 65th among all blueliners.

The Islanders were not too bad offensively last season, so if they can find those same kind of numbers or even improve upon them, with the arrival of Jordan Eberle, you would have to think that de Haan will be a relevant defenseman yet again in the 2018 season.

Forwards	Cap	Defense	Cap	Goalies	Cap
Jordan Eberle	6.000	Johnny Boychuk	6.000	Jaroslav Halak	4.500
John Tavares	5.500	Nick Leddy	5.500	Thomas Greiss	3.333
Andrew Ladd	5.500	Calvin de Haan	3.300
Nikolay Kulemin	4.188	Thomas Hickey	2.200
Anders Lee	3.750	Adam Pelech	1.600
Cal Clutterbuck	3.500	Dennis Seidenberg	1.250
Casey Cizikas	3.350	Scott Mayfield	0.625
Josh Bailey	3.300
Brock Nelson	2.500
Jason Chimera	2.250
Anthony Beauvillier	0.894
Matthew Barzal	0.863
Joshua Ho-Sang	0.863
Steve Bernier	0.650

The Islanders appear to be in decent shape with $3.6 million in unused cap space with this current projected lineup, which should give them plenty of flexibility through the season.  They'll be in really good shape, if those young players can make the opening night roster, since they should be able to provide good value for money.