Josh Norris

Last Season

Thirteen goals and 21 assists in 44 games — 34 points, plus-11, at 15:50 a night. Thirty-eight games missed, which is the story of his career: 283 games across seven seasons.

The Finesse Game

A genuine finisher when available. A hundred and four career goals in 283 games is a thirty-goal pace, and the shot is the reason — heavy, quick, and taken from sensible ice at a median of 22 feet with 38 per cent inside twenty.

He is a natural centre with soft hands in tight and a one-timer that belongs on a first power-play unit. When he plays, he scores.

The Physical Game

Six foot two, 196, and he competes without being punishing. The problem has never been willingness; it has been that his body keeps stopping. Two full seasons out of seven.

The Intangibles

The best on-ice rate on the club: 55.1 per cent of the expected goals, 89th percentile. And a number that should be treated carefully — in 535 five-on-five minutes the goals went 33 for and 10 against, while the expected goals went 25.1 to 20.4.

A twenty-goal swing in a third of a season is variance dressed as dominance. His real rate is excellent; his apparent rate is not real.

Ten points in his last ten games. He is 27 and the only question that has ever mattered about him is how many games he plays. Everything else is settled.