Luke Evangelista

Last Season

Twelve goals and 44 assists in 81 games — 56 points, plus-one, at 16:37 a night.

The Finesse Game

The passing is the case for him and forty-four assists in a middle-six role is a genuinely high number. He plays the half-wall, holds the puck a beat longer than is comfortable, and finds the man arriving late.

The shooting is the weaker half: 254 unblocked attempts from a median of 28 feet with 37 per cent inside twenty, and thirteen goals. That conversion should be better from that ice.

The Physical Game

Six foot even, 183, and light. Twenty-eight penalty minutes. He does not win wall battles and is not a net-front option; the game is played in space and on timing.

The Intangibles

The best underlying season on the club by a distance: 56.9 per cent of the shot attempts, 94th percentile, and 52.4 per cent of the expected goals, 74th, across 1,137 minutes.

And the goals went 33-48 against him, which is a fifteen-goal hole on a fifty-two per cent chance share. That is Nashville’s goaltending and finishing, not his.

Seven points in his last ten. He is 24, a second-round pick, and 142 points into 253 games.

On a roster full of thirty-somethings having ordinary seasons, he is the one player whose process says he should be better than his results, which is the most useful thing a young forward can have on his page.