Anthony Cirelli

Last Season

Twenty-three goals and 29 assists in 71 games — 52 points, plus-38, at 17:19 a night with 48 penalty minutes.

The Finesse Game

The shot chart is excellent for a defensive centre. A hundred and eighty-three unblocked attempts with 56 per cent from inside twenty feet and a median of fifteen, and 23 goals came out of it.

That is a checking centre scoring like a second-line one because he never shoots from anywhere else. Three hundred and forty-four points in 582 career games.

Twenty-nine assists is a fair rate at seventeen minutes.

The Physical Game

Six foot one, 193, and he is not big, but he is relentless — the stick is everywhere, he blocks shots, and he takes the defensive-zone draw against every top centre in the conference.

Forty-eight penalty minutes for a player who defends this much is disciplined.

The Intangibles

Fifty-five per cent of the expected goals, 88th percentile, and 55.5 per cent of the shot attempts, 92nd, across 908 minutes, with the chances 46.2 to 37.8 in his favour and the goals 43-34.

Those are outstanding numbers in the hardest role on a very good team, and they are why he is a perennial Selke candidate who never quite wins it.

Six points in his last ten and every one of them a goal. He is 29, a third-round pick, and two Stanley Cups into a career built entirely on the half of the game nobody buys tickets for.