Jason Zucker

Last Season

Twenty-four goals and 21 assists in 62 games — 45 points, minus-five, at 15:37 a night. Ten of the goals came on the power play. It was his fifteenth NHL season.

The Finesse Game

The shot chart is the report. The median unblocked attempt of his season came from fourteen feet, and 62 per cent came from inside twenty. Only Benson stands closer.

That is how a 34-year-old scores 24 goals on 128 shots. The speed that made him a 33-goal scorer in Minnesota has faded a step, and he replaced it by simply refusing to shoot from anywhere that does not work. It is the most instructive page on this roster for the young wingers around him.

The playmaking was never the strength — 227 assists against 241 goals in 832 games — and it is not now.

The Physical Game

Five foot eleven, 198, and he goes to the net front knowing what happens there. Twenty-three penalty minutes says he takes it rather than gives it.

At his age the ability to keep arriving in that ice is the thing that will go first, and when it does the goals go with it.

The Intangibles

The five-on-five numbers held up better than the minus-five suggests: 51.9 per cent of the expected goals, 70th percentile, in 746 minutes.

Eight points in his last ten. He is a veteran on a young team who is still one of its three best finishers, and he is doing it by knowing exactly where to stand. There is no mystery here and no decline visible yet.