Drake Batherson

Last Season

Thirty-three goals and 38 assists in 79 games — 71 points, minus-seven, at 17:21 a night with 13 power-play goals.

The Finesse Game

The shot chart is excellent: 283 unblocked attempts with 47 per cent from inside twenty feet, median 23, and 35 goals.

He is not fast and it does not matter, because he arrives in the quiet ice rather than racing anyone to it. The release is quick and disguised, and thirteen power-play goals says the club has worked out where to put him.

Thirty-eight assists is genuinely good.

The Physical Game

Six foot three, 209, and he uses the reach rather than the body. Thirty-three penalty minutes. He goes to the net front on the power play and is otherwise not a physical presence.

The Intangibles

Fifty-six point five per cent of the expected goals, 94th percentile, and 55.6 per cent of the shot attempts, 92nd, with the chances 49.0 to 37.7 in his favour.

The minus-seven attached to that is the goaltending, which cost this club thirty-three goals.

Eleven points in his last ten, seven of them goals. He is 28, a hundred and twenty-first overall pick, and 364 points into 470 games.

Ottawa’s top six — Stutzle, Batherson, Cozens, Pinto, Giroux, Greig — posted expected-goal shares between 54 and 58 per cent. This is a very good hockey team.