Anthony Mantha

Last Season

Thirty-three goals and 31 assists in 81 games — 64 points, plus-10, at 15:11 a night with seven power-play goals. His five-on-five work was done in Pittsburgh.

The Finesse Game

The best season of his career and the shot chart explains it: 212 unblocked attempts, 33 goals, median 22 feet with 47 per cent from inside twenty.

That is a six-foot-five forward doing his scoring in the paint, and 33 goals from 152 shots on goal is a remarkable conversion — high enough that it will regress, and earned from ice that makes some of it repeatable.

Thirty-one assists is a career high too.

The Physical Game

Six foot five and 240 pounds, which is enormous, and he has spent a decade being told he does not use it. Forty-three penalty minutes.

He is not a punishing forechecker. What he is now is a net-front presence who cannot be moved, and on the power play that is worth a great deal.

The Intangibles

Fifty point six per cent of the expected goals, 59th percentile, with the chances 46.4 to 45.3 and the goals 60-44 in his favour.

He is 32, a twentieth overall pick, and arrives on a club that finished fourth on the power play and could not finish at five-on-five. A thirty-goal scorer who works from twenty-two feet is precisely the shape of the problem New Jersey had.