Nick Jensen

Last Season

Four goals and 13 assists in 61 games, minus-two, at 17 minutes a night. His tenth NHL season and his 694th game. The five-on-five work was done in Ottawa before he came here.

The Finesse Game

There is almost none and he has built a decade-long career on that being fine. Thirty-six shots in 61 games. He makes the first pass, he does not carry, and he has 26 goals in 694 games.

The Physical Game

Six foot even and 202, which is small for the job he does, so he does it with angles. He takes away the middle of the ice and lets you have the outside, and he is willing to block the shot that results.

The Intangibles

The interesting thing about his season is a split you do not see often. He was on for only 48.9 per cent of the shot attempts — 44th percentile, below average — but 53.6 per cent of the expected goals, which is 81st. The opposition had the puck plenty and could not do anything good with it.

That is the signature of a defenceman who concedes the perimeter deliberately. The goals bore it out: 43 for and 29 against while he was on the ice, the best margin of any defenceman covered in this club’s section.

He is 36 and a hundred and fiftieth pick who has outlasted almost everyone taken ahead of him. Anaheim needs exactly this, because nobody else on the blue line does it.