Sean Kuraly

Last Season

Six goals and 16 assists in all 82 games, even in plus-minus, at 13:20 a night. His 644th career game.

The Finesse Game

Modest by design. A hundred and ten shots produced six goals, from a median distance of 33 feet with 38 per cent of his attempts coming from beyond forty — he is shooting from the outside because that is where a fourth-line centre ends up, and nothing good comes of it.

He wins faceoffs and he chips pucks out. That is the job description and he executes it.

The Physical Game

Six foot two, 208, and he forechecks hard every shift. Forty-one penalty minutes is an honest fourth-liner’s total — he finishes checks, he does not run people, and he will answer if asked.

Thirty-three years old and still playing all 82, which for this role is worth as much as any skill on the page.

The Intangibles

His on-ice rate was 50 per cent of the expected goals, 53rd percentile — dead average and, remarkably, the second best among Boston forwards. That says more about Boston than about him.

The goals while he was out there went 58-38 against expected goals of 36.1 to 36.0. A twenty-goal swing on a fourth line in 880 minutes is not a fourth line playing well; it is a goaltender. He is a solid, limited, thoroughly useful player and none of the plus figures on his page are his.