Elias Lindholm

Last Season

Seventeen goals and 31 assists in 69 games, minus-seven, at 17:53 a night. Seven power-play goals. His 969th career game came somewhere in the middle of it.

The Finesse Game

The skill is still visible in flashes. He is a two-way centre who reads a play properly, wins faceoffs, and gets to the right ice: 45 per cent of his unblocked attempts came from inside twenty feet, median 22, which is a forward doing his shooting where shooting works.

Seventeen goals out of it. The hands have not gone; the pace has.

The Physical Game

Six foot one, 200, and he plays a heavy enough game on the forecheck. Thirty-eight penalty minutes. He is not soft and never was, but he no longer wins the races that let a two-way centre dictate.

The Intangibles

The report and the arithmetic are a long way apart on him and the arithmetic is unkind. Forty-five per cent of the expected goals while he was on the ice — 14th percentile in the league, the lowest of any Boston forward with a regular shift. The shot attempts were 46.8 per cent, 24th percentile. The goals went 31-35 against.

Some of that is a poor team. He was not the only Bruin under water. He was the furthest under.

He is 31 with a fifth-overall pedigree and two very good seasons in Calgary behind him, and eight points in his last ten games is a reminder that the ability is still in there. But this is now two years of results pointing the same direction, and a player is eventually what his results say.