Denton Mateychuk

Last Season

Thirteen goals and 18 assists in 75 games — 31 points, plus-12, at 19:11 a night. His first full NHL season, at 21.

The Finesse Game

The skating is the whole engine and it is excellent — he escapes forecheckers by turning through them and he joins the rush as a genuine fourth attacker.

Thirteen goals from a defenceman in his first full season is a striking number, and the shot chart says treat it carefully: 123 unblocked attempts from a median of 47 feet, only twelve per cent inside twenty. Thirteen goals from that distance is a rate no defenceman sustains.

Eighteen assists is the more repeatable half.

The Physical Game

Five foot eleven and 188 pounds, and it is the familiar bargain. Eight penalty minutes in 75 games. He cannot clear his crease and he loses net-front battles to men forty pounds heavier.

He compensates with feet and stick, ending plays before contact becomes available — the same solution Hutson and Zellweger run, and the same open question about what happens in a series.

The Intangibles

Fifty-one point two per cent of the expected goals, 65th percentile — respectable for a rookie defenceman playing nineteen minutes.

The goals underneath are ugly: 44-65 against across 1,250 minutes, against expected goals of 56.3 to 53.8. That is a twenty-three goal shortfall, the second largest on a club full of them, and it is the same story as Werenski’s page.

He is 21, the twelfth pick in 2022, and the plus-twelve on his record is doing him no favours in either direction.