Johnathan Kovacevic

Last Season

No goals and eight assists in 34 games — eight points, even in plus-minus, at 17:52 a night with 38 penalty minutes. Forty-eight games missed.

The Finesse Game

None. Fifty-one unblocked attempts from a median of 58 feet, 78 per cent of them from beyond forty, eight per cent from inside twenty, and not one went in.

Ten goals in 258 career games. Eight assists in 34 games is a fair rate for a defenceman whose entire job is the retrieval and the outlet.

The Physical Game

Six foot five and 223 pounds, and this is the whole proposition. Thirty-eight penalty minutes in 34 games is a high rate for a defensive defenceman and it comes from clearing a crease the way a man that size is supposed to.

He is difficult to get around, difficult to move, and gets his stick on a lot of pucks in front. The skating is heavy and he is beaten wide by genuine speed.

The Intangibles

Forty-seven point seven per cent of the expected goals, 33rd percentile, and 50.1 per cent of the shot attempts, 58th, across 548 minutes. The goals went 21-30 against him.

Four points in his last ten, none of them goals.

He is 29, a third-round pick who took until 25 to become a regular, and New Jersey lost a hundred and forty-nine man-games from these three blue-line pages alone. On a club that conceded ten goals more than its chances warranted, keeping this one healthy matters more than what he does when he is.