Mavrik Bourque

Last Season

Twenty goals and 21 assists in all 82 games — 41 points, plus-six, at 15:29 a night. His five-on-five work was done in Dallas, where he was on for 55.9 per cent of the expected goals, 91st percentile.

The Finesse Game

A skilled, clever forward who found the Dallas shot chart immediately: 43 per cent of his unblocked attempts from inside twenty feet, median 24, and 19 goals from 192 tries.

That is the club’s method — low volume, high quality — and he took to it faster than most rookies would. Twenty-one assists says the playmaking that made him a thirtieth overall pick is real.

The Physical Game

Five foot eleven, 187, and light. Twenty-two penalty minutes. He is not winning pucks by force and will need to find another way on a heavier roster.

The Intangibles

The chances ran 49.9 to 39.3 in his favour across 1,166 minutes, with the goals 48-28. Both halves agreed, which after this book’s last several hundred pages is worth noting on its own.

He is 24 and arrives in Nashville, which finished twentieth and twenty-seventh in expected goals, from a club that finished twenty-fifth and fourth. Those are opposite structures and the number will not travel intact.

What should travel is the shot selection. If he keeps taking them from twenty-four feet he is a twenty-goal scorer anywhere.