Jakob Chychrun

Last Season

Twenty-six goals and 34 assists in 80 games — 60 points, plus-20, at 23:20 a night — the heaviest workload on the club — with eight power-play goals and 62 penalty minutes.

His 621st career game and his 323rd point. A hundred and twenty-two career goals from defence.

The Finesse Game

The shot is one of the two or three heaviest from any blue line in the league. Three hundred and fifty-two unblocked attempts from a median of 44 feet with 59 per cent from beyond forty, and twenty-six goals came out of it.

Twenty-six goals from a defenceman is the best figure at the position in this edition, and eight of them came on the power play he runs.

Thirty-four assists is a fair rate on top of that.

The Physical Game

Six foot two, 215, and he defends adequately — closes gaps, finishes checks, does not clear a crease especially well. Sixty-two penalty minutes.

The skating is genuinely good and it is why he can carry twenty-three minutes.

The Intangibles

Forty-nine point eight per cent of the expected goals, 51st percentile, and 51.5 per cent of the shot attempts, 71st, across 1,502 minutes, with the chances level at 66.6 and 67.2 — and the goals 52 for and 40 against.

That twelve-goal margin on level chances is the goaltending, and in Washington the goaltending was the story.

Nine points in his last ten, three of them goals. He is 28, and this is the best season of his career by twenty points.