Kevin Fiala

Last Season

Eighteen goals and 40 points in 56 games — a very good per-game rate on a season he did not finish. The minus-11 is the second-worst number on the team and is not entirely bad luck.

The Finesse Game

The hands are exceptional. He beats defencemen one-on-one more often than anyone else here, he can shoot in stride off either foot, and the release on the wrist shot is quick enough that goaltenders are beaten from distance several times a year. On the power play he is a genuine threat from the off wing.

What separates the good stretches from the bad ones is decision-making rather than skill. When he is going, he attacks the middle of the ice and the puck moves; when he is not, he tries to beat the same defenceman three times in a shift and the play dies on the wall. He has always been a streaky player and there is no sign of that changing.

The Physical Game

Six feet, 205, and he plays lighter than that. He does not forecheck hard, avoids the interior on the defensive side of the puck, and is not going to win a battle he can skate around instead.

The Intangibles

The defensive record is the honest problem. He is a minus player on a team that defends well, which takes some doing, and coaches have moved him up and down the lineup for years trying to find a configuration where the offense outweighs it.

He is thirty this season and remains capable of a 70-point year. He is also capable of a 45-point one, and nobody has yet found the thing that determines which.