Matvei Gridin

Last Season

Six goals and 14 assists in 37 games — 20 points, minus-14, at 15:10 a night. His first NHL season, at 19.

The Finesse Game

The skill is obvious and it is why he went 28th. Quick hands, a good release, and the willingness to try the pass that beats two men — fourteen assists in 37 games is a genuinely strong rate for a teenager.

The shot comes from too far out, as it does for nearly every young forward here: 28 per cent inside twenty feet, median 30, seven goals from 103 attempts.

Seven points in his last ten. The offence is not the problem.

The Physical Game

Six foot one and 182 pounds, and at 19 he is simply not strong enough yet. Two penalty minutes in 37 games, which for a winger is an almost complete absence from the physical part of the sport.

He is removed from pucks at will. This is the ordinary condition of a nineteen-year-old and the ordinary remedy is two years.

The Intangibles

The numbers are brutal and need to be read with his age attached. Forty-three per cent of the expected goals — seventh percentile — and 43.8 per cent of the shot attempts, sixth. Across 475 minutes the ice tilted against him about as hard as it tilted against anyone in the league.

That is what happens when a teenager plays NHL minutes on a bad team, and it is an argument about deployment rather than about him. It is also a real cost the club paid.

He is the second-most interesting player on this roster after Parekh, and the two of them are the reason to watch Calgary at all.