Pontus Holmberg

Last Season

Eleven goals and 11 assists in 70 games — 22 points, plus-one, at 13:21 a night with 31 penalty minutes.

The Finesse Game

A hundred and forty-four unblocked attempts, ten goals, median 23 feet with 47 per cent from inside twenty. Seventy-one points in 229 career games.

Eleven assists in 70 games is thin. This is not an offensive player and the club is not confused about it.

The Physical Game

Six foot even, 201, and solidly built. Thirty-one penalty minutes.

He is a positional defensive forward — good on draws, good on the kill, reliable in his own end — and there is nothing about the physical game that stands out in either direction.

The Intangibles

Fifty-six point one per cent of the expected goals, 92nd percentile, and 54.7 per cent of the shot attempts, 89th, across 900 minutes, with the chances 37.8 to 29.6 in his favour and the goals 46 for and 28 against.

That eighteen-goal margin from a thirteen-minute role is among the better ones in this edition, and unlike most such figures the chances underneath support it.

Four points in his last ten, two of them goals. He is 27, a hundred and fifty-sixth overall pick that Toronto let walk, and one of four Tampa forwards above the eighty-eighth percentile in chance share. Twenty-two points does not begin to describe the season.