Oliver Bjorkstrand

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 for Columbus, 28 goals and 29 assists at 17:57 a night, minus-35, sixteen penalty minutes, 215 shots. Nine of the twenty-eight came on the power play. Eighty-ninth overall in 2013 — the third round — seven seasons, 382 games, 234 points.

The Finesse Game

8.98 shots per 60 is the 77th percentile at 13.0 per cent, from a 28-foot median with forty-two per cent from the slot. Two hundred and fifteen shots is a career high by fifty-two and twenty-eight goals is a career high by five.

Thirty-three per cent of his points came on the power play off 3:07 a night, the 89th percentile among forwards — a genuine first-unit workload on a club that finished 26th at it.

2.38 takeaways per 60 is the 36th-most of the 393 forwards who played forty games, at 6-0 and 175 pounds.

0.92 penalties drawn per 60 against 0.33 taken, and the net at the 91st percentile. He is in a great deal of traffic for a small man and comes out of it ahead.

47.8 per cent of the expected goals and 50.5 per cent of the attempts, out of 50.3 per cent offensive-zone starts, the 333rd-highest of the 652 skaters who took two hundred end-zone starts — dead level, on a club that finished 30th in the league.

The minus-35 is the largest number on this roster and Columbus is the reason. His ice went 41-62 against an expectation of 46.30-50.48 — five goals short in front and eleven and a half more against than the model asked, on the club that finished 32nd in the league in expected goals against per 60 at even strength.

The Physical Game

3.55 hits per 60 is the 46th percentile and 1.30 blocks the 30th at 175 pounds — the lightest forward on this roster.

Sixteen penalty minutes in eighty games.

The Intangibles

22.0 mph is the 24th percentile, 3.8 bursts per 60 the 31st, 9.50 miles per 60 the 35th. Three skating measurements in the bottom third, which for a scoring winger of this size is the file’s real weakness.

Forty per cent of his even-strength ice was spent in the offensive zone, the 29th percentile — the lowest on this roster.

He is 27 with 234 points in 382 games and has just been traded to a club that scored 216 goals. The volume, the takeaways, the power-play role and the penalty ledger are four real things. The skating and the fact that his chance share was three points below his attempt share are the two the record keeps returning to.