Danton Heinen

Last Season

Six goals and six assists in 46 games — 12 points, plus-seven, at 11:21 a night. His five-on-five work was done in Pittsburgh.

The Finesse Game

Modest and well placed. Seventy-one unblocked attempts with 49 per cent from inside twenty feet, median 22, and six goals. He goes to the right ice and does not shoot much.

A hundred and two goals and 151 assists in 612 games is a career of being the fourth-best forward on a line.

The Physical Game

Six foot two and 187, which is light, and he plays a positional rather than physical game. Sixteen penalty minutes in 46 games.

The Intangibles

Fifty-six point seven per cent of the expected goals — 95th percentile — in 504 minutes, with the expected goals 20.3 to 15.5 in his favour.

That is a genuinely excellent rate and it comes with the usual warning: five hundred sheltered minutes on a good team is the easiest way to produce one. The goals themselves went 16-19 against.

He is 31, a fourth-round pick, and has spent a decade being the player clubs sign when they need somebody who does not make mistakes. Five points in his last ten. On a Columbus fourth line that was badly outplayed, that has real value.