Jordan Spence

Last Season

Seven goals and 24 assists in 73 games — 31 points, plus-15, at 18:44 a night.

The Finesse Game

A puck-mover of the purest kind. The first pass is quick and it is almost always the right one, and he retrieves under a forecheck without panicking — which at his size is the only way to survive.

The shot barely exists: 181 unblocked attempts from a median of 53 feet, eight per cent from inside twenty, seven goals. Twenty-four assists is where all of the offence lives.

The Physical Game

Five foot eleven and 188 pounds, and it is the standing reservation. Twenty-two penalty minutes in 73 games. He cannot clear a crease and gets moved out of the front of his own net by anyone who wants the space.

He avoids the problem rather than solving it, ending plays with feet and stick before contact is available.

The Intangibles

Fifty-nine point six per cent of the expected goals and 59.9 per cent of the shot attempts — the ninety-ninth percentile in both, which is the best combined mark of any defenceman in this book.

The chances ran 59.0 to 40.1 in his favour across 1,233 minutes. The actual goals went 51 for and 56 against.

That is a twenty-four goal hole on a nineteen-goal chance advantage, and it is not ambiguous: Ottawa’s goaltending came in thirty-three goals worse than the chances it faced, fourth-worst in the league.

He is 25, a ninety-fifth overall pick, and had one of the best underlying seasons of any defenceman in the league on a team that finished first in expected goals against. Almost nobody noticed.