Brady Skjei

Last Season

Three goals and 23 assists in all 82 games — 26 points, minus-seven, at 22:37 a night with 1,470 five-on-five minutes, the most on the club.

The Finesse Game

Thin for the ice time. A hundred and seventy unblocked attempts from a median of 51 feet, five per cent inside twenty, three goals.

Twenty-three assists from twenty-two minutes a night is a low return, and 306 points in 773 career games is the honest career rate. He moves the puck to the next man rather than through a layer.

The Physical Game

Six foot three, 210, and the skating is genuinely good for the size — he retrieves under pressure and can carry when the outlet is not there. Forty penalty minutes.

In front of his own net he is adequate rather than dominant, which for a defenceman this big is the persistent criticism.

The Intangibles

Forty-six point eight per cent of the expected goals, 25th percentile, and 47.9 per cent of the shot attempts, 34th, with the chances 57.0 to 64.8 against across fifteen hundred minutes.

That is the most minutes on the club being played below the line, and Nashville finished 27th in even-strength expected goals against. Those two facts are connected.

He is 32, a first-round pick, and paid as a top-pair defenceman. The skating says he should be better than this; eleven seasons say he probably is not.