Pavel Buchnevich

Last Season

Twenty goals and 28 assists in 81 games — 48 points, minus-10, at 17:56 a night with four power-play goals. His 674th career game and his 506th point.

The Finesse Game

Skilled in a way that has never quite been fashionable — he is deceptive with the puck, patient under pressure, and the release is disguised.

Two hundred and fifteen unblocked attempts, twenty goals, median 22 feet with 45 per cent from inside twenty and only nineteen per cent from beyond forty. That is very good ice for a winger of his type.

Two hundred and two goals and 304 assists in 674 games.

The Physical Game

Six foot one, 196, and he takes the punishment that comes with working the slot without dishing much out. Twenty-six penalty minutes.

The skating is fine and the compete has been questioned more than once across two organisations, usually by people watching him coast through a neutral zone he had no intention of entering.

The Intangibles

Fifty-one point four per cent of the expected goals, 66th percentile, and 49.9 per cent of the shot attempts, 56th, across 1,080 minutes, with the chances 47.1 to 44.6 in his favour.

Eight points in his last ten, five of them goals.

He is 31, a third-round pick, and on a club that has turned over almost entirely since 2019 he is the veteran scorer the young wingers are being measured against. Twenty goals and forty-eight points is a fair season and about ten points short of what he was signed for.