Oliver Ekman-Larsson

Last Season

Eight goals and 31 assists in 78 games — 39 points, minus-six, at 20:36 a night with 70 penalty minutes.

His 1,137th career game and his 539th point.

The Finesse Game

A hundred and fifty-eight unblocked attempts from a median of 53 feet, 76 per cent from beyond forty, four per cent from inside twenty, and eight goals.

Thirty-one assists at 35 is a genuinely good return and the second-best figure among Toronto defencemen. The first pass is still quick and the power-play reads are intact.

A hundred and fifty-six goals in 1,137 games.

The Physical Game

Six foot two and 190 pounds, which is light, and it has been the criticism since Arizona made him the sixth pick. Seventy penalty minutes.

He does not win net-front battles and defends with stick and position. The skating is still fair for the age.

The Intangibles

Forty-seven point five per cent of the expected goals, 31st percentile, and 46.6 per cent of the shot attempts, 23rd, across 1,388 minutes, with the goals 50 for and 66 against.

He won a Stanley Cup in Florida two seasons ago in a sheltered third-pair role, which is the version of him that works, and Toronto is playing him twenty-one minutes a night.

Four points in his last ten, none of them goals. He is 35, and this is the fourth organisation of a career that has taken a great deal of criticism, most of it for being paid like a number-one defenceman rather than for being a poor one.