Beck Malenstyn

Last Season

Seven goals and seven assists in 81 games, even in plus-minus, at 11:15 a night with 38 penalty minutes.

The Finesse Game

Thin, and honest about it. Seventy-two shots on goal produced seven goals — but 53 per cent of his unblocked attempts came from inside twenty feet, median 18. He goes where the goals are and does not have the hands to finish once he gets there.

That is a real distinction worth drawing. A player shooting from eighteen feet and scoring seven is a different proposition from one shooting from thirty-five and scoring seven; the first one is a hands problem, which sometimes improves.

The Physical Game

The job, and he does it hard. Six foot three, 209, a genuine forechecker who arrives on time and heavily, and 38 penalty minutes of the useful kind.

He is fast for his size, which is the whole reason a fourth-liner is employable now in a way his 1991 counterpart would not have been.

The Intangibles

The on-ice results were poor — 47.5 per cent of the expected goals, 31st percentile, and 46.4 per cent of the shot attempts, 21st. He is a fourth-liner on a club whose fourth line was outplayed.

The goals went 46-33 in his favour against expected goals of 26.9 to 29.8, which is a nineteen-goal swing and belongs to somebody else entirely.

He is 28 and a hundred and forty-fifth overall pick with 262 games. This is the shape of the rest of it.