Adam Klapka

Last Season

Six goals and 12 assists in 79 games with 112 penalty minutes, minus-12, at 10:38 a night.

The Finesse Game

More than the frame suggests. A hundred and thirty-four unblocked attempts with 37 per cent from inside twenty feet, median 26, and six goals. He gets to the net because at his size nobody can move him once he arrives.

The hands are what you would expect. Twelve assists in 79 games.

The Physical Game

Six foot eight and 235 pounds — level with Crevier as the largest man in this edition — and unlike most players built this way he is not a statue. He forechecks at a genuine NHL pace, finishes every check, and fights.

A hundred and twelve penalty minutes on a fourth line, and he still played 79 games. Read the 1991 edition of this book and the man doing this job was a liability for fifty seconds of every shift. This one is not.

The Intangibles

The on-ice rate was 47.2 per cent of the expected goals, 28th percentile — poor, and roughly what everybody on this roster posted. The goals went 28-24 in his favour, which on a club outscored by 43 is a small mercy.

Undrafted out of the Czech Republic, 116 career games, and 25 years old. He is the single most physically imposing player in the league and the reason he has a job is that he learned to skate well enough to use it.

That sentence would have been unnecessary thirty years ago and is the whole of his value now.