Ivan Provorov

Last Season

Nine goals and 22 assists in all 82 games — 31 points, plus-14, at 24:49 a night with 1,643 five-on-five minutes, more than any player covered in this edition.

The Finesse Game

Modest and honestly deployed. Two hundred and twenty-three unblocked attempts from a median of 51 feet, seven per cent inside twenty, nine goals. Eighty-six goals in 778 career games.

Twenty-two assists from that workload is a low return and reflects a defenceman whose job is to get the puck to Werenski and then defend.

The Physical Game

Six foot one and 224, which is heavy, and he plays to it. Thirty-two penalty minutes across 82 games of the hardest minutes on the club. He blocks shots, he clears the net front, and he does not miss games — this was his fourth straight full season.

The Intangibles

Fifty-one point one per cent of the expected goals, 64th percentile, and 50.6 per cent of the shot attempts, 63rd. Above the line, not by much, in a volume of minutes nobody else in this book attempted.

The goals went 75-57 in his favour, the best margin on the club.

He is 29, a seventh overall pick who spent years being blamed for everything in Philadelphia, and he has become what he probably always was: a durable, heavy, slightly-better-than-average top-pair defenceman who plays more minutes than anyone. On a club whose penalty kill finished thirtieth, he was not the problem.