Conor Garland

Last Season

Twelve goals and 21 assists in 71 games — 33 points, minus-21, at 17:12 a night. His five-on-five work was done in Vancouver.

The Finesse Game

A relentless small forward who plays a puck-possession game built on refusing to give it up. He works the wall, he cuts back, and he makes defencemen commit before he moves it.

The shooting has fallen away: 216 unblocked attempts, twelve goals, median 28 feet with 35 per cent inside twenty. A hundred and thirty-four goals in 556 career games says he used to finish better than this.

Twenty-one assists in 71 games is the floor of what he offers.

The Physical Game

Five foot ten and 165 pounds, level with Stankoven and Lardis as the lightest skaters in this edition. He does not win battles by force; he wins them by being harder to shake off than anyone expects, and 34 penalty minutes says he does not avoid them.

The Intangibles

The numbers turned against him last season and it is worth being direct about it: 45.9 per cent of the expected goals, 18th percentile, with the expected goals 39.6 to 46.6 across 947 minutes. That is his worst season by the underlying measures.

Two points in his last ten.

He is 30. A hundred and sixty-five pound winger whose value came from possession and finishing has lost ground on both, and Columbus has bought him at the point where the shape of the decline matters more than the name.