Scott Sabourin

Last Season

One goal and four assists in 26 games — five points, plus-one, at 7:57 a night with 89 penalty minutes.

The Finesse Game

Twenty-six unblocked attempts across 26 games, one goal. Thirteen points in 73 career games.

There is nothing here and the page will not invent any.

The Physical Game

Six foot three, 205, and the entire role is fighting. Eighty-nine penalty minutes in under eight minutes a night is one of the highest rates in the league by some distance.

Undrafted, thirty-four years old, and seventy-three NHL games spread across six seasons — the record of a man who is called up when a club decides it needs somebody to answer for something.

The Intangibles

Forty-nine point three per cent of the expected goals, 47th percentile, in 206 minutes. That is a very small sample and the only fair thing to say about it is that it is not damning.

Four points in his last ten, none of them goals.

He is 34, and on a club that finished third in the league in possession and has Viel for the same job, the honest question is whether these two hundred minutes need to exist at all. Tampa evidently thinks they do.