Kent Johnson

Last Season

Seven goals and 15 assists in 76 games — 22 points, minus-eight, at 13:14 a night.

The Finesse Game

The hands are the reason he went fifth overall and they are genuinely special — he does things with the puck in tight that almost nobody in this book can do, and every so often one of them ends up in a highlight package.

The rest has not followed. A hundred and seventy unblocked attempts, twelve goals, median 27 feet with 34 per cent inside twenty. Fifteen assists in 76 games from a player whose entire case is creativity.

A hundred and thirty-eight points in 274 career games is a fourth-line rate from a top-five pick.

The Physical Game

Six foot even and 170 pounds, which is close to the lightest forward in the league, and it is the whole problem. Twenty penalty minutes in 76 games. He is removed from pucks routinely, he cannot hold a wall, and he does not get to the ice where his hands would matter.

The Intangibles

Forty-eight point four per cent of the expected goals, 39th percentile — the worst of any Columbus forward with regular minutes, on a club that was seventh in the league.

Three points in his last ten.

He is 23 and there is still time, and the honest reading is that a hundred and seventy pound forward who will not go to the net has one route open to him and has not taken it. The skill was never the question.