Mikael Granlund

Last Season

Nineteen goals and 22 assists in 58 games — 41 points, and a 34-year-old’s version of a point every game and a half. Nineteen minutes a night. Eight of the goals came on the power play. His five-on-five work was done in San Jose before he arrived here.

The Finesse Game

Five foot ten, and everything he does is built around not needing to be bigger. He plays the half-wall on the power play as well as anyone in the league at his age, because the release is quick and the fake is convincing and defenders have to honour both.

At even strength he is a distributor — 453 career assists against 198 goals tells the story — and his 19 goals last season were a career-rate outlier that owed something to a shooting percentage he will not repeat. The median attempt came from 23 feet, so at least he was getting to reasonable ice to do it.

The Physical Game

The weakest part and always has been. He is 193 pounds and avoids contact as a matter of design rather than cowardice; eighteen penalty minutes in 58 games is a man who is never in a scrum.

Against a heavy forecheck he can be taken out of a game, and at 34 that is not going to improve.

The Intangibles

Nine hundred and sixty games and 651 points, which is a career almost nobody predicted from a ninth overall pick who spent his first three seasons looking like a bust.

The five-on-five numbers stayed good — 52.2 per cent of the expected goals, 72nd percentile — on a club that was poor. Ten points in his last ten games. He is here to give a young forward group somebody who has done it, and to run a power play that finished mid-table and needs the help.