Brandon Duhaime

Last Season

Four goals and five assists in all 82 games — nine points, minus-two, at 11:04 a night with 78 penalty minutes. His five-on-five work was done in Washington.

His 375th career game.

The Finesse Game

A hundred unblocked attempts, four goals, median 21 feet with 48 per cent from inside twenty. The location is right and there is nothing behind it.

Seventy points in 375 career games. Five assists in a full season is among the lowest returns in this edition.

The Physical Game

Six foot two, 210, and a genuinely aggressive checker — he forechecks hard, finishes everything, and fights. Seventy-eight penalty minutes in eleven minutes a night is a high rate.

The speed is real and it is what makes the forechecking work.

The Intangibles

Forty-seven point eight per cent of the expected goals, 34th percentile, and 46.2 per cent of the shot attempts, 19th, across 809 minutes in Washington, with the goals 44-36 in his favour.

That margin belongs to Washington’s goaltenders, who finished twenty-nine goals better than the chances they faced — the best in the league.

He is 29, a fourth-round pick, and a fourth-line winger who kills penalties. On this roster that is a real job and nine points is what it pays.