Sam Bennett

Last Season

Twenty-six goals and 32 assists in 76 games — 58 points, minus-10, at 18:30 a night with 82 penalty minutes.

The Finesse Game

Better hands than the reputation allows. Three hundred and three unblocked attempts with 44 per cent from inside twenty feet, median 23, and 26 goals — a genuine second-line scoring rate produced almost entirely from the inside.

Thirty-two assists is a career-best sort of number and reflects a player who has added a layer in his thirties.

The Physical Game

Six foot one, 193, and he plays far heavier. Eighty-two penalty minutes, a willingness to cross the line, and a forechecking game that has made him the most disliked opponent in several cities.

This is the whole of his value in a way the regular season cannot capture. He is built for a checking series and he has the rings to prove the point.

The Intangibles

Fifty point six per cent of the expected goals, 59th percentile, and 53.3 per cent of the shot attempts, 83rd, across a thousand minutes.

The minus-10 is the club-wide goaltending story again — the chances were 47.0 to 45.9 in his favour.

He is 30, the fourth pick in 2014, and spent six years in Calgary being called a disappointment before becoming exactly the player a contender needs. Eight points in his last ten.

Of everyone in this book, he is the clearest case of a man worth more in May than the eighty-two games say.