A.J. Greer

Last Season

Seventeen goals and 15 assists in 78 games, plus-14, with 113 penalty minutes. Twelve and a half minutes a night — fourth-line ice time — and he was on for 54.8 per cent of the expected goals while he had it, which is 86th percentile in the league.

The Finesse Game

He is not skilled and does not pretend to be. What he is, is fast: six foot three and 224 pounds moving well enough to forecheck a defenceman into a mistake, which is where a good share of those 17 goals started.

The finishing is honest fourth-line finishing — get to the net, be big, shovel it in. Fifteen assists in 78 games is the ceiling on the playmaking and everybody involved knows it.

The Physical Game

The reason he has a job, and he is very good at it. A hundred and thirteen penalty minutes, a willingness to fight, and — this is the part that matters — the legs to do all of it without being a passenger for the other fifty seconds of the shift.

The Intangibles

Read the 1991 edition of this book and the fourth-line enforcer scores two goals, takes 250 minutes and cannot keep up. Greer scored 17, was plus-14, and drove play at an 86th-percentile rate. The job did not disappear; the people doing it got good at hockey, because under a salary cap a club cannot afford to dress a man who only fights.

He turns 30 in December and this is what he is. On a young team that is going to get pushed around in a few buildings, that is worth having.