JJ Peterka

Last Season

Twenty-five goals and 22 assists in all 82 games, plus-six, at 16 minutes a night. His five-on-five work was done in Utah, where he was on for 54 per cent of the expected goals — 83rd percentile — with the goals going 56-41 in his favour.

The Finesse Game

Quick and slippery, and the skating is what makes the rest work. He beats a defenceman to the outside and then cuts back inside him, which is a young player’s move that most young players lose by 25 and he has not.

The shot is good without being a weapon: 236 unblocked attempts, 25 goals, median distance 30 feet. He would score more from closer and does not always get there.

Two hundred and ninety-seven points in 320 career games at 24 is a genuine top-six forward’s development curve.

The Physical Game

Six foot even, 189 pounds, and it is the limitation. He does not win pucks along the wall and gets bumped off plays by defencemen who are simply bigger. Twenty-eight penalty minutes.

In a Boston line-up built on size, he is the small skilled one, and how the club protects him will matter.

The Intangibles

This is the most important thing in the section, so it is worth being plain. Every Bruins forward of consequence posted a below-average on-ice rate last season. Peterka posted an 83rd-percentile one somewhere else.

If that travels, Boston has added the thing it actually lacked — a forward who tilts the ice rather than one who outscores his chances. If it was Utah’s system, the club has bought a 47-point winger at a price that assumed more. Watch the first thirty games.