Brandt Clarke

Last Season

Eight goals and 40 points in all 82 games, plus-11, on nearly twenty minutes a night. Forty points from a twenty-two-year-old defenceman is a real season, and he did it while playing 74 percent of his five-on-five minutes with Edmundson, who was clearly there to cover for him.

The Finesse Game

The puck skills are the reason he was the eighth pick. He walks the offensive blue line as well as any young defenceman in the league, changing the angle until a lane opens rather than firing into shin pads, and the passes he makes down low from the point are the kind most defencemen do not attempt.

He is not a burner, and the skating is the part that has been questioned since junior. It is fine. He pivots cleanly, he escapes pressure with a quick first few steps, and he has not looked overwhelmed by NHL forechecks.

Sixty-three penalty minutes for a young defenceman suggests he is still occasionally reaching rather than moving his feet.

The Physical Game

Six-two and 200, and he defends with his stick more than his body. He can be beaten to the net front by a heavier forward and does not clear the crease with any authority. That will improve with strength; some of it is positional and will improve with time.

The Intangibles

The offensive instincts are unusual and they are not going away. What decides whether he becomes a number-one defenceman is the half of the rink where he is currently being sheltered — the coverage reads in his own end are a year or two behind the rest of his game.

He is on a team with an ageing icon logging the minutes he will eventually inherit. Watching that handover is the most interesting thing about this club.