Noah Laba

Last Season

Nine goals and 15 assists in 74 games — 24 points, plus-two, at 13:28 a night with 31 penalty minutes. His first NHL season, at 22.

The Finesse Game

The location is sound: 114 unblocked attempts with 46 per cent from inside twenty feet, median 22, and nine goals.

He goes to the net and is not afraid of the traffic, which for a fourth-round pick playing thirteen minutes as a rookie is the reason he stuck.

Fifteen assists is ordinary.

The Physical Game

Six foot three, 214, and he competes hard. Thirty-one penalty minutes. He wins faceoffs and forechecks properly, and the size is real rather than decorative.

The Intangibles

Forty-three point eight per cent of the expected goals, ninth percentile, and 45.5 per cent of the shot attempts, 15th, across 879 minutes.

Those are poor and the club around him was poor at generating offence — 29th in the league — but the plus-two beside them is doing a lot of work that the chances do not support.

Five points in his last ten. He is 23, a hundred and eleventh overall pick, and a fourth-line centre who has already exceeded what that pick usually returns. The ceiling looks like a third line.