Matthew Tkachuk

Last Season

Thirteen goals and 21 assists in 31 games — 34 points, minus-six, at 18:18 a night with 48 penalty minutes. Fifty-one games missed.

The Finesse Game

The shot chart is the most extreme of any skilled forward in this edition. Fifty-eight per cent of his unblocked attempts came from inside twenty feet, with a median of thirteen — level with Bertuzzi and Benson, and both of those are net-front specialists rather than point-a-game playmakers.

He gets there because he is willing to be hit for it, and once he is there the hands are good enough to finish what most men would merely deflect. Twenty-one assists in 31 games says the passing did not go anywhere either.

The Physical Game

Six foot two, 202, and one of the two or three most genuinely difficult players in the league to play against. Forty-eight penalty minutes in a third of a season. He cross-checks, he talks, he arrives late, and he has built an entire career on being worth more than the penalties.

The body is now the concern. Fifty-one games missed, after a spring played visibly hurt.

The Intangibles

Fifty-two point nine per cent of the expected goals, 77th percentile, and 56.4 per cent of the shot attempts, 94th — the best mark on the club — in only 417 minutes.

Eleven points in his last ten games. He is 28, 670 points into 673 games, and when available he is the most important forward on a Stanley Cup team.

The word doing all the work in that sentence is available.