Kyle Connor

Last Season

Thirty-nine goals and 53 assists in all 82 games for 92 points on 274 shots — the most on the team — at twenty-one and a half minutes a night. Ninety percent of his five-on-five time came with Scheifele.

The Finesse Game

The shot is elite and the volume is what makes it count. He shoots from everywhere, off the rush and off the cycle, and he releases it while still moving, which is the thing that separates a scorer from a shooter. Three hundred and twenty-three career goals at thirty says a player who has been doing this at a high level for a long time without a signature season that made anyone notice.

He is a better passer than the reputation suggests — 53 assists is not the mark of a pure finisher.

The skating is genuinely quick, particularly in a straight line, and he uses it to arrive at the net late rather than to beat defencemen wide.

The Physical Game

Six-one and 183, and there is no physical element at all. Sixteen penalty minutes in a full season describes a player who never engages. He does not forecheck, does not win pucks along the wall, and is removed from the puck by anyone who wants to.

The Intangibles

Undrafted in the first round only because of a college route, and one of the more consistently productive wingers of his generation in a market that produces very little national attention.

The minus-two on a team that was outshot is fine; the defensive indifference is real and has never cost him a job because the goals keep arriving.