Radek Faksa

Last Season

Two goals and 15 assists in 58 games — 17 points, plus-two, at 11:44 a night.

The Finesse Game

Minimal and pointed in the right direction. Fifty-eight unblocked attempts with 52 per cent from inside twenty feet, median 17 — excellent ice — and two goals out of it.

That is a hands problem rather than a positioning one. Ninety-six goals in 766 career games is the career rate and it is not going to improve at 32.

Fifteen assists in 58 games is more than he usually manages.

The Physical Game

Six foot three, 216, and he plays the heavy defensive game the club drafted him for. Eighteen penalty minutes. He wins faceoffs, kills penalties on the eighth-ranked unit in the league, and takes the defensive-zone start so somebody else does not have to.

The Intangibles

Forty-four point three per cent of the expected goals, 11th percentile, and 45.6 per cent of the shot attempts, 15th, across 558 minutes.

Those are bad numbers and they are the numbers a fourth-line centre gets when his job is to start every shift a hundred and eighty feet from the opposition net. Somebody has to take them, and on this club it is him.

He is 32, a thirteenth overall pick who became a checking centre, and 766 games into a career spent almost entirely doing the least glamorous job in the sport for one organisation.