Tim Stützle

Last Season

Thirty-four goals and 49 assists in 80 games — 83 points, plus-seven, at 20:16 a night with nine power-play goals.

The Finesse Game

The skating is among the four or five best in the league — he changes speed inside a stride and defencemen who close on him find the gap has already moved.

The shot selection has become genuinely good: 279 unblocked attempts with 45 per cent from inside twenty feet, median 22, and only eleven per cent from beyond forty. Thirty-five goals came out of that.

Forty-nine assists is the larger half and always has been.

The Physical Game

Six foot even and 187 pounds, and light. Thirty-nine penalty minutes. He is not winning wall battles and avoids the interior traffic except when he is shooting.

That is a real question in a series and it is the only one about him.

The Intangibles

Fifty-four point four per cent of the expected goals, 84th percentile, and 54.5 per cent of the shot attempts, 89th, with the chances 48.4 to 40.6 in his favour.

Eleven points in his last ten. He is 24, the third pick in 2020, and 409 points into 447 games.

Ottawa finished eleventh in generating even-strength offence and first at preventing it. He is the reason for the first half of that, and the club is going to be very good the moment somebody stops the puck.