Nick Paul

This Season So Far

The 2022-23 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

80 games between Ottawa and Tampa Bay, 16 goals and 16 assists at 16:31 a night, minus-14, thirty-nine penalty minutes, 166 shots. Two of the sixteen came on the power play and one short-handed. Hundred-and-first overall in 2013 by Dallas — the fourth round — seven seasons, 248 games, 80 points.

The Finesse Game

2.68 takeaways per 60 is the 13th-most of the 393 forwards who played forty games, against 1.45 giveaways at the 46th percentile.

Nearly two won for every one lost, from a 6-4, 234-pound winger on a checking line. That is the single most transferable thing in the file — and Tampa Bay now has three of the twenty-three most takeaway-prone forwards in the league, with Anthony Cirelli 17th and Brandon Hagel 23rd.

7.54 shots per 60 is the 55th percentile at 9.6 per cent, from a 25-foot median with fifty-one per cent from the slot.

1.51 even-strength points per 60 is the 32nd percentile and six per cent of his points came on the power play — twenty-eight seconds a night, the 24th percentile.

48.8 per cent of the expected goals is the 41st percentile, out of 42.0 per cent offensive-zone starts, the 113th-lowest of the 652 skaters who took two hundred end-zone starts — a genuinely hard chair, and most of the season was spent on a club that finished 21st.

His ice went 37-48 against an expectation of 42.87-45.02, six short in front and three more against, which is where the minus-14 comes from.

The Physical Game

2:08 a night short-handed is the 95th percentile among forwards, and he blocks 2.54 shots per 60 at the 84th.

4.81 hits per 60 is the 60th percentile at 6-4 and 234 pounds, and thirty-nine penalty minutes came out of eighty games.

The Intangibles

22.2 mph is the 39th percentile and 5.3 bursts over twenty miles an hour per 60 the 53rd, against 9.30 miles per 60 at the 21st.

His shot is 94.8 mph, the 84th percentile — hard, and it produced sixteen goals at 9.6 per cent.

He is 27, with eighty points in 248 games across seven seasons, and the thirty-two is a career high by twelve. The takeaways, the kill, the blocks and the size are four things that travel. A 32-point ceiling at 27 is what he is, and Tampa Bay bought him to play twelve minutes and kill penalties rather than to add to that.