Pavel Mintyukov

Last Season

Eight goals and 14 assists in 73 games, minus-three, 18:26 a night. Second-pair minutes, and 1,122 of them at five-on-five.

The Finesse Game

The skating is the asset and it is a real one — he moves the puck up ice himself, joins as a fourth attacker, and has the feet to get back when it goes wrong. Twenty-two points from a 22-year-old defenceman is a reasonable return.

The shot is heavy enough from the point but he is a long way out when he uses it: 53 per cent of his attempts came from beyond forty feet, median 41. Eight went in. He has not yet learned to walk the line and shorten that distance, which is the difference between a 22-point defenceman and a 40-point one.

The Physical Game

Six foot one, 207, and he defends more with his feet than his body. Seventeen penalty minutes in 73 games says he is rarely the one initiating, and in front of his own net he can be moved.

The Intangibles

This is where the report has to be honest about a disagreement. The eye sees a mobile, offensively capable young defenceman with two hundred games of experience at an age when most are still in the minors. The five-on-five numbers see something else: 48.1 per cent of the expected goals, 36th percentile, and the goals going 48-60 against while he was out there.

Both of those can be true — he has played big minutes on a bad defensive team, and somebody had to. But it has now been three seasons and the results have not moved. The next one decides which reading was right.