Aliaksei Protas

Last Season

Twenty-five goals and 27 assists in 76 games — 52 points, plus-20, at 18:14 a night with only twenty penalty minutes.

A hundred and seventy-one points in 321 career games.

The Finesse Game

Two hundred and fifty-seven unblocked attempts, 22 goals, median 25 feet with 40 per cent from inside twenty.

Twenty-five goals is a career high and the second season running he has improved by ten. Twenty-seven assists says the hands are real — for a man this size the puck skills below the goal line are genuinely unusual.

The Physical Game

Six foot six and 250 pounds — only Matt Rempe and Elmer Soderblom weigh more among forwards. Twenty penalty minutes in 76 games is remarkably low for a player his size.

That is the criticism and the compliment together: he occupies space and controls pucks rather than punishing people. He is impossible to move off a wall and impossible to check off the puck.

The Intangibles

Fifty-one point six per cent of the expected goals, 68th percentile, and 53.6 per cent of the shot attempts, 84th, across 1,139 minutes, with the goals 43 for and 28 against.

That is a genuinely good second-line season, and the plus-20 has real work underneath it as well as Thompson’s goaltending.

Six points in his last ten, three of them goals. He is 25, a ninety-first overall pick, and Washington has him signed a long time. That is one of the better contracts in the league.