2025 Rangers Report Card: Calvin de Haan

This post is part of an ongoing series of Rangers Report Cards, grading the performance of each member of the 2024-25 New York Rangers. To view more report cards in this series, go here.

Expectations

Coming in to the 2024-25 season, we had no expectations at all for Calvin de Haan, because he wasn't anywhere on our radar. Sure, perhaps someone on this masthead mulled it over as a hypothetical "who would be a good, safe depth defenseman the Rangers could get for cheap" question. He hasn't played 60 games in a single season since 2021-22. His best offensive year, that saw him put up 25 points (5 goals, 20 assists) in the only year of his career that played all 82 games, was 10 seasons ago in 2016-17.

When the Rangers traded Ryan Lindgren and Jimmy Vesey to the Colorado Avalanche in the deal that brought de Haan to New York, he was penciled in as a bottom pair defenseman. This was, however, before the Rangers also went out and acquired Carson Soucy from the Vancouver Canucks, adding one more log to the jam that was a defense corps better characterized as having quantity over quality. Through 44 games with Colorado, he posted 7 points, all assists, and average 14:55 TOI, playing most on a pair with Sam Malinski.

Performance

You know the story by now. After suiting up for the Blueshirts in the first three games after he came over from Colorado, de Haan sat in the press box for the final 20 games of the regular season. It's certainly worth mentioning that the Rangers were 2-0-1 in those three games, recording back-to-back shutouts against the Nashville Predators and the New York Islanders, and losing to the Washington Capitals in overtime. In those games, de Haan looked good in the limited role he was being asked to play. He recorded a single point, picking up an assist in his first game as a New York Ranger.

de Haan played the majority of his Rangers minutes paired with Zac Jones. In 38 minutes together, they posted a 100 percent GF%, a 55.48 xGF%, and a 51.35 SCF%.

As for why what we saw from de Haan in these three games didn't merit more ice time, well, that's a question you'll have to direct to former Rangers head coach Peter Laviolette. You'd only get a Coach ChatGPT non-response response, but he's the only one who really knows. Given the repeated defensive breakdowns that we witnessed in the 20 games that de Haan sat—and throughout the entire season—there doesn't seem to be an obvious reason we shouldn't have seen more of him.

When we remember Calvin de Haan's (breif) time as a New York Ranger, it won't be for anything that he did on the ice. It'll be for what he said while he was walking on to the ice at the Rangers' practice facility.

He'd go on to revise and extend his remarks in a reply to Jonny Lazarus on X:

It's hard to disagree with de Haan's stark and profane assessment of his time in New York. It's strange the extent to which NHL general managers don't have as much of a say over the lineup decisions NHL coaches make as GMs in other sports do. But, nonetheless, that's true around the league. It's possible that Chris Drury had little intention of acquiring de Haan when he swung the deal with Colorado for Lindgren and Vesey. Colorado may have insisted the Rangers take him just to open a roster spot for Lindgren. But, even if we stipulate to that, this again is where the disconnect between GM and coach becomes evident, as well does one of Peter Laviolette myriad professional failings.

Laviolette's assessment of the options available to him in the Rangers defensive corps was simply wrong. And Chris Drury's inability or unwillingness to assert a more firm hand with the coach and the line up allowed for the insanity of those poor defensive lineup decisions to be made over and over again.

We'll remember Calvin de Haan more for what he revealed about the team than anything he did on skates.

Grades

Author Grade: Incomplete

Banter Consensus: Incomplete

Final Evaluation

de Haan only played three games with the Rangers. And while he was good in those games, and the Rangers looked good when he played in them, he suddently got stuck on the shelf, never to see the ice again. Now, he's off to find his next free agent contract—that quest certainly a big reason why he quickly worked to deescalate his first comments. We just don't have enough facts in evidence to give him any grade other than an "incomplete," but we'll always appreciate the radical candor that de Haan gave us in that minute about just how ridiculous stupid and awful lineup decisions were throughout the 2024-25 season.