Drew Doughty

Last Season

Five goals and 23 points in 72 games at twenty-three minutes a night, which was again the most on the roster. The production is a long way from his peak; the workload is not.

The Finesse Game

The reads are still the best part of him and probably always were. He knows where the play is going before it goes there, which is what lets a defenceman who is no longer quick keep arriving on time. The first pass is crisp and he still steps up into the neutral zone to kill a rush before it starts — the anticipation covers a good deal of ground he can no longer cover with his feet.

The offensive game has narrowed. He is not a power-play driver anymore, he shoots less, and the end-to-end rushes that used to be a weekly occurrence have mostly gone. What remains is a defenceman who moves the puck simply and rarely puts a teammate in trouble.

The Physical Game

Six-one and 210, and he plays a heavy positional game rather than a punishing one. He is strong along the wall, good in front of his own net, and willing in the corners. He has taken an enormous amount of physical mileage and missed significant time in recent seasons; that is the thing to watch rather than the point production.

The Intangibles

He is the franchise, and has been since he was eighteen. He plays the hard minutes, talks openly about the state of the team, and has never once given the impression of coasting toward the end of a career.

The uncomfortable part is that he is being asked to play twenty-three minutes a night at thirty-six on a team that has younger defencemen ready for them. It is a testament to him that the coaching staff keeps making that choice, and a fair question whether they should.