Olen Zellweger

Last Season

Seven goals and 15 assists in 76 games, plus-four, at 16:59 a night. His five-on-five work was done in Anaheim, where he was on for 53.2 per cent of the shot attempts — 83rd percentile — on a club that finished 29th in expected goals against.

The Finesse Game

The skating is the whole thing and it is very good. The edges let him escape a forechecker in a space that should not be big enough, and the first pass out is quick and usually the right one. He walks the line on a power play like a forward.

The shot is the underdeveloped part. A hundred and ninety-one attempts from a median of 41 feet produced seven goals, and only 12 per cent came from inside twenty. He gets the puck through, and that is all it does.

The Physical Game

The cost, and it is the familiar one. Five foot ten and 193 pounds. He cannot clear a crease and he loses wall battles to grown wingers. Thirty-four penalty minutes suggests he does not shy away from them, which is admirable and does not change who wins.

He survives by ending plays with his feet and stick before contact becomes available.

The Intangibles

He is 23, a second-round pick, and 164 games in. The possession numbers are genuinely good and were earned in poor circumstances, which is the strongest argument for him: he tilted the ice on a team that had it tilted against them all year.

The honest uncertainty is the one every defenceman his size carries. Nobody knows what happens in a series against a team that decides to run him, and the answer will decide whether he is a second-pair defenceman or a top-four one.