Dakota Joshua

Last Season

Ten goals and eight assists in 55 games — 18 points, minus-two, at 12:15 a night with 49 penalty minutes. Twenty-seven games missed.

The Finesse Game

The shot chart is excellent and it is essentially all of the offence. Sixty-one per cent of his unblocked attempts came from inside twenty feet with a median of thirteen — the fourth-closest of any forward in the league with fifty or more attempts.

Ten goals from 79 tries is a strong conversion. Ninety-six points in 296 career games.

Eight assists in 55 games is the flat truth about everything else.

The Physical Game

Six foot three, 218, and he plays a heavy, aggressive game — he forechecks with weight, wins the wall, and fights. Forty-nine penalty minutes in twelve minutes a night is a high rate.

The skating is ordinary and it caps the role.

The Intangibles

Forty-seven point four per cent of the expected goals, 30th percentile, against only 43.9 per cent of the shot attempts, seventh percentile, across 625 minutes.

That three-and-a-half point gap between chances and attempts is the useful part: the shots against came from the outside while he was out there.

Six points in his last ten, three of them goals. He is 30, a fifth-round pick Toronto drafted, let go, and bought back after a career year in Vancouver. Twenty-seven games missed is now the pattern rather than the exception.