Josh Doan

Last Season

Twenty-five goals and 27 assists in all 82 games — 52 points, minus-four, at 15:52 a night, with nine power-play goals.

The Finesse Game

He shoots from the right places and he shoots often. Two hundred and fifty-two unblocked attempts with 56 per cent of them inside twenty feet and a median of 17 — that is a net-front and slot player, and 25 goals is the reward for standing there.

The hands are good in tight rather than dazzling in open ice. He is not going to beat a defenceman one-on-one; he is going to arrive at the moment the puck does.

The Physical Game

Six foot two, 198, and he goes to the hard ice willingly. Twenty-five penalty minutes is a player who takes the punishment that comes with the job rather than dishing it out.

The Intangibles

The best underlying season of any Sabre: 54.9 per cent of the expected goals — 88th percentile — with the goals 51-31 in his favour and the expected goals 50.2 to 41.3. Unlike most of the club’s plus numbers, the process is there underneath.

The minus-four beside it is the sort of thing that gets a player misjudged. At five-on-five he was the most effective forward on the team by a clear margin.

He is 24, a second-round pick, and the son of a man who played 1,540 games in the desert. The comparison will follow him around; on this evidence he is a better player than the label suggests.