Nikita Zadorov

Last Season

Two goals and 20 assists in 81 games, plus-18, with 152 penalty minutes. Twenty-one minutes a night and 1,416 five-on-five minutes — more than anyone on the roster.

The Finesse Game

Almost none, and he does not pretend otherwise. Two goals from 161 unblocked attempts, 67 per cent of them from beyond forty feet with a median of 49. He stands at the point and puts pucks toward the net so somebody else can touch them.

The skating is respectable for a man this size and that is the whole reason he is an NHL defenceman rather than a memory of one.

The Physical Game

The largest man covered in this book. Six foot seven and 255 pounds, 152 penalty minutes, and he plays every one of them the way you would hope. He clears the crease, he punishes forecheckers, and he still fights when the game asks for it.

This is a genuinely valuable and increasingly rare thing, and unlike his 1991 equivalent he can also skate a regular shift.

The Intangibles

The plus-18 is the most misleading number in the Boston section. While he was on the ice the goals went 67-50 in his favour; the expected goals went 56.1 to 63.2 against. That is a seventeen-goal swing handed to him by his goaltender and his shooters.

Forty-seventh per cent of the expected goals, 26th percentile, on the most ice time of any Bruin. He is enormous and useful and the underlying results say the club was worse when he played. Both of those are on the page and the reader can decide which matters more.