Ryan Lomberg

Last Season

Four goals and five assists in 57 games — nine points, minus-four, at 9:03 a night with 59 penalty minutes.

The Finesse Game

There is none and none is offered. Fifty-three shots on goal in 57 games, four goals. Seventy-two points in 394 career games.

The Physical Game

Five foot nine and 184 pounds, and he fights anybody. That is the job, and it is a strange and admirable one — he is giving away six inches and forty pounds most nights and has built a 394-game career on being willing to anyway.

Fifty-nine penalty minutes in nine minutes a night is a very high rate.

He is also quick enough to forecheck, which is the only reason a man this size can hold the role in the modern game.

The Intangibles

He did not play enough five-on-five in one place last season to register an on-ice record in this edition, which is its own comment on the ice time.

He is 31, undrafted, and has a Stanley Cup ring. On a Columbus roster that already carries Olivier — bigger, younger, and scoring fifteen goals at an 86th-percentile rate — the case for a second player doing the same job less well is hard to make.

That is not a knock on the man. It is the salary cap doing what it has done to this job for twenty years.