Jean-Gabriel Pageau

Last Season

Seventeen goals and 18 assists in 74 games — 35 points, even in plus-minus, at 15:40 a night with four penalty minutes.

The Finesse Game

The shot chart is excellent. Fifty-four per cent of his unblocked attempts came from inside twenty feet, median 17, and seventeen goals came from only 81 shots on goal — a very high conversion earned from very good ice.

Eighteen assists is ordinary. He is a checking centre who scores because he goes to the net rather than because he creates.

The Physical Game

Five foot eleven and 180 pounds, and four penalty minutes across 74 games is one of the lowest rates in this edition for a player taking defensive-zone draws all night.

He is never out of position, so he is never obliged to grab. That is the whole discipline of the role.

The Intangibles

Forty-six point two per cent of the expected goals, 20th percentile, with the goals 38-49 against across 915 minutes — on a club that finished 28th in expected goals against and last on the penalty kill, where he plays most.

Four hundred and one points in 871 games. He is 34, a fourth-round pick, and has spent a career being the third centre a good team wants and a bad team overuses.