Denver Barkey

Last Season

Five goals and 12 assists in 43 games — 17 points, minus-six, at 13:24 a night. His first NHL season, at 20.

The Finesse Game

The shot chart is the best of any rookie in this book. Fifty-seven per cent of his unblocked attempts came from inside twenty feet, with a median of fourteen, and only eleven per cent from beyond forty.

That is a hundred and seventy-one pound winger doing his shooting in the crease, which almost nobody his size attempts. Five goals came out of 63 tries, which is a poor conversion from excellent ice and a hands problem rather than a positioning one.

Twelve assists in 43 games says the playmaking is the more developed half.

The Physical Game

Five foot ten and 171 pounds, one of the two or three lightest skaters in the league. Sixteen penalty minutes in 43 games.

He is removed from pucks by grown defencemen and goes back for more, which is admirable and does not change the arithmetic. Two summers of weight is the standard answer and he has had none.

The Intangibles

Fifty-four point eight per cent of the expected goals, 86th percentile — the best mark on the club — in 507 minutes.

That is a genuinely striking number for a twenty-year-old and it comes with the small-sample warning attached.

Seven points in his last ten, three of them goals. He is 21, a ninety-fifth overall pick, and the most interesting young forward on this roster after Michkov. The shot chart says he already knows the hard part.