Jeff Malott

Last Season

Three goals and six assists in 58 games with 55 penalty minutes, at 8:49 a night — the lightest workload of any regular here. His five-on-five minutes were played in Los Angeles.

The Finesse Game

Not the point. Fifty-four shots and three goals in 58 games, and the hands are what you would expect from a man who has spent most of his professional life in the American League.

He is a straight-line forechecker. He goes to the puck, arrives heavily, and gives it to somebody who can use it.

The Physical Game

The job. Six foot five and 215, 55 penalty minutes in fourth-line minutes, and he is genuinely difficult to move off a wall.

The Intangibles

Here is the divergence, and it needs the caveat attached rather than buried. In 507 five-on-five minutes he was on for 55 per cent of the expected goals — 88th percentile — with the goals dead even at 20-20 and the expected goals well ahead at 22.2 to 18.2.

That is a genuinely excellent rate. It is also five hundred minutes of sheltered fourth-line shifts on a very good team, which is the single easiest way to produce a flattering number. A thirty-year-old with 71 career games does not become an impact player because of one season of favourable usage.

Take it as evidence that he does not sink a line, which for this role is the whole ask. Ask again in a hundred games.