Jake Neighbours

Last Season

Fifteen goals and 21 assists in 69 games — 36 points, minus-seven, at 15:14 a night with 43 penalty minutes.

The Finesse Game

The shot chart is one of the best on the club. Fifty-seven per cent of his unblocked attempts came from inside twenty feet with a median of seventeen, and only thirteen per cent from beyond forty.

Fifteen goals from 129 tries is a strong conversion, and 71 goals in 280 career games says it holds up.

Twenty-one assists is honest work from a winger whose value is at the net rather than away from it.

The Physical Game

Six foot even, 201, and genuinely hard — he forechecks, finishes checks, and takes the punishment that comes with standing seventeen feet from a goaltender. Forty-three penalty minutes.

The skating is ordinary and it is the ceiling on the role.

The Intangibles

Fifty-three per cent of the expected goals, 77th percentile, and 49.6 per cent of the shot attempts, 53rd, across 887 minutes, with the chances 36.9 to 32.7 in his favour and the goals 43-34.

That is the second-best chance share on the club behind Thomas.

Ten points in his last ten. He is 24, a twenty-sixth overall pick, and precisely the sort of winger a top six of Thomas, Buchnevich and Holloway needs to be dirty on its behalf.