Kirill Marchenko

Last Season

Twenty-seven goals and 40 assists in 76 games — 67 points, plus-seven, at 18:57 a night with six power-play goals. Two hundred and eighteen shots on goal.

The Finesse Game

Big hands on a big frame. He handles the puck in traffic the way a smaller man does and he has the reach to take it away from a defenceman who thinks he has it covered.

The shot is quick and heavy. Three hundred and thirty-eight unblocked attempts, 33 goals, median distance 29 feet with 27 per cent inside twenty — he could stand to get closer, and the release is good enough that it has not cost him yet.

Forty assists is the surprise. He has become a genuine playmaker rather than a finisher who passes.

The Physical Game

Six foot three, 201, and he uses it to protect pucks rather than to punish. Thirty-two penalty minutes.

He is not a net-front presence, which on a club with Voronkov and Coyle doing that work is a reasonable division of labour.

The Intangibles

Fifty-two point two per cent of the expected goals, 72nd percentile, in 1,125 minutes.

A hundred and two goals in 292 career games is a genuine top-line rate, and he was a forty-ninth overall pick who spent his early twenties in Russia. He is 26 and the best forward on this roster.

Eight points in his last ten. Columbus was seventh in even-strength expected goals for and twenty-sixth on the power play; a good deal of the first number and none of the second belongs to him.