Matthew Wood

Last Season

Seventeen goals and 13 assists in 71 games — 30 points, minus-three, at 12:19 a night with four power-play goals. His first NHL season, at 20.

The Finesse Game

The shot is genuinely good and the reason he went fifteenth overall. A hundred and forty-eight unblocked attempts produced 17 goals — a strong conversion — from a median of 26 feet with 36 per cent inside twenty.

Seventeen goals in twelve minutes a night as a twenty-year-old is a real rookie season and the best scoring rate per minute on the club.

Thirteen assists says the passing is the lagging half.

The Physical Game

Six foot four, 202, and light for the frame. Fourteen penalty minutes in 71 games. He is not yet strong enough to hold the ice his shot chart wants, and gets moved off pucks by grown defencemen.

Two summers of weight is the ordinary prescription and he has not had them.

The Intangibles

Forty-four per cent of the expected goals, tenth percentile, with the goals 18-33 against across 759 minutes.

That is poor, and it is a twenty-year-old on a club that finished 27th in expected goals against, playing the minutes a rookie gets. The scoring is the signal here and the on-ice rate is mostly the roster.

Five points in his last ten. He is 21 and the most promising forward Nashville has under twenty-five.