Nico Hischier

Last Season

Twenty-eight goals and 38 assists in all 82 games — 66 points, minus-six, at 20:43 a night with 11 power-play goals.

The Finesse Game

The shot selection is the best of the club’s top six. Forty-eight per cent of his unblocked attempts came from inside twenty feet with a median of 20, and 28 goals came out of it.

He is not the fastest man on his own line and it does not matter, because the reads are early enough that he arrives with the puck rather than chasing it. Thirty-eight assists in a role that also takes every hard defensive shift is a genuinely high return.

The Physical Game

Six foot one, 200, and he plays a properly hard two-way game — 29 penalty minutes across 82 games of the toughest assignment on the roster, which is exceptional discipline.

He wins faceoffs, kills penalties, and is the man sent out to protect a lead.

The Intangibles

Fifty-four point eight per cent of the expected goals, 86th percentile, with the chances 59.7 to 49.3 in his favour and the goals 40-44 against.

A sixteen-goal hole, again, on a club that under-finished by thirty-two.

Thirteen points in his last ten. He is 27, the first pick in 2017, the captain, and 488 points into 609 games. The first overall pick that year was supposed to be the safe one rather than the spectacular one, and that is exactly what he has been.