Dylan Strome

Last Season

Nineteen goals and 39 assists in 80 games — 58 points, plus-two, at 18:02 a night with six power-play goals and 46 penalty minutes.

His 598th career game and his 442nd point. Two hundred and seventy-seven career assists.

The Finesse Game

A genuine playmaking centre. A hundred and ninety-eight unblocked attempts produced 23 goals — a very high conversion — from a median of 20 feet with 51 per cent from inside twenty.

Thirty-nine assists is the fourth straight season above thirty-five, and setting up Ovechkin has been a large part of his job for four years.

The Physical Game

Six foot four and 200 pounds, which is tall and thin, and he does not play to the size. Forty-six penalty minutes.

The skating is the limitation and always has been — he was the third pick in 2015 and it took three organisations before anybody found a role that did not require him to skate.

The Intangibles

Forty-seven point eight per cent of the expected goals, 34th percentile, and 48.8 per cent of the shot attempts, 43rd, across 1,096 minutes, with the chances 47.0 to 51.5 against.

Those are below-average numbers under a fifty-eight-point season, and the plus-two on top is Thompson.

Nine points in his last ten, four of them goals. He is 29, and a first-line centre by usage on a club whose underlying numbers say he is a second-line one.