Ryan Hartman

Last Season

Twenty-three goals and 43 points in 76 games, six on the power play, on sixteen and a half minutes a night. He played 40 percent of his five-on-five time with Kaprizov, which is the job: get him the puck and make life unpleasant for whoever is trying to take it back.

The Finesse Game

More skill than the reputation suggests. He finishes around the net, he has a quick shot from the slot, and he has scored at a twenty-goal rate for several seasons now — playing beside a star helps, and it does not do the finishing for him.

He is not a creator. The passing is functional, he does not carry the puck through traffic, and if the line’s offence has to start with him it usually does not start.

The skating is ordinary. He gets to the right places by anticipating rather than by beating anyone there.

The Physical Game

Constant, and occasionally over the line. He finishes every check, agitates after whistles, and has a long history of supplementary discipline to go with it. Forty-eight penalty minutes understates how much of his game happens in the scrums.

The value is real: opponents lose composure around him. The cost is real too, and has occasionally been games.

The Intangibles

He is thirty-one, on his fourth organisation, and has found a role that fits him better than any of the others did. Coaches like him more than opposing fans do, which is the usual arrangement for this type.

The read is that he is a good complementary winger whose production is tied to the man he plays with, and whose edge is worth keeping as long as it stays on the right side of costing games.