Brett Howden

Last Season

Twelve goals and 10 assists in 58 games — 22 points, minus-nine, at 14:54 a night with 41 penalty minutes. Twenty-four games missed.

His 489th career game.

The Finesse Game

Ninety-eight unblocked attempts produced twelve goals — a very high conversion — from a median of 20 feet with 52 per cent from inside twenty and only six per cent from beyond forty.

That is a checking centre with an excellent shot chart and a rate nobody sustains. A hundred and sixty-three points in 489 career games is the real level.

Ten assists in 58 games is thin.

The Physical Game

Six foot two, 201, and he plays a hard, useful checking game — he forechecks, kills penalties, wins draws. Forty-one penalty minutes in fifteen minutes a night is a fair rate.

The skating is honest and the size is used properly.

The Intangibles

Fifty-four per cent of the expected goals, 83rd percentile, and 49.9 per cent of the shot attempts, 56th, across 766 minutes, with the chances 30.9 to 26.3 in his favour and the goals 35-25.

That is a very good third-line season and the minus-nine on top of it is another Vegas special-teams artefact.

Six points in his last ten, three of them goals. He is 28, a twenty-seventh overall pick, a Stanley Cup, and one of the more useful third-line centres in the league.