Michael Kesselring

Last Season

No goals and two assists in 34 games — two points, even in plus-minus, at 13:24 a night with 50 penalty minutes. His five-on-five work was done in Buffalo.

The Finesse Game

Seventy-one unblocked attempts from a median of 56 feet, 73 per cent from beyond forty, eight per cent from inside twenty, and none went in.

Fifty-five points in 190 career games, forty-three of them assists. Two points in 34 games last season is a collapse from the two before it, and the sample is small enough that it may be nothing.

The Physical Game

Six foot five and 215, and it is the whole case. Fifty penalty minutes in thirteen minutes a night is one of the higher rates in this book.

He clears his crease, finishes checks, and defends the front of his net properly. The skating is heavy but not disqualifying.

The Intangibles

Fifty point nine per cent of the expected goals, 61st percentile, and 49.2 per cent of the shot attempts, 48th, across 439 minutes in Buffalo, with the goals 23-20 in his favour.

Those are the second-best chance-share figures of anybody joining San Jose this year, behind Marchment, and in the smallest sample of the group.

He is 26, a sixth-round pick, and a six-foot-five right-shot defenceman who can take fifteen minutes. On a club building around very light forwards, that is a specific and useful thing to own.