Josh Anderson

Last Season

Fourteen goals and 23 points in 72 games, minus-four, on fourteen minutes a night with 90 penalty minutes. That is roughly what he has produced for four straight seasons.

The Physical Game

The most physically imposing forward on the roster and it is not close. He is enormous, genuinely fast, and he finishes checks at a speed that changes games. He forechecks with real violence, draws penalties, and is the player opponents look for before they touch the puck.

Ninety penalty minutes is high; a share of them are the frustration kind.

The Finesse Game

The gap between the tools and the production is the story of his career. He can beat a defenceman wide with pure speed and then cannot finish the play — the hands go missing at the moment they are needed, and his shot from any distance is ordinary.

Eighty-nine shots in seventy-two games is a low volume for a player who gets to the net as often as he does.

The Intangibles

There is a version of him that scored twenty-seven goals in Columbus, and every season since has been an argument about whether it is recoverable. At thirty-two, the answer is probably not.

What remains is a fast, heavy, honest fourth-line winger on a contract written for a scorer. He is useful in a playoff series and expensive in a regular season.