Travis Sanheim

Last Season

Eleven goals and 26 assists in 81 games — 37 points, plus-12, at 24:13 a night with 1,551 five-on-five minutes, the most on the club.

The Finesse Game

The skating is excellent for a man six foot four — he exits the zone with the puck rather than chipping it, and he can carry through the neutral zone when the outlet is not there.

Eleven goals from the blue line is a good number: 162 unblocked attempts, median 45 feet, and he gets them through. Twenty-six assists is a fair first-pair return.

The Physical Game

Six foot four, 222, and he defends with reach and body position. Twenty penalty minutes across 81 games of the hardest minutes on a top-three defensive club, which is exceptional discipline.

He clears his crease and closes gaps without lunging.

The Intangibles

Fifty-one point eight per cent of the expected goals, 70th percentile, against only 48.1 per cent of the shot attempts, 36th — the Philadelphia split in one player.

The goals went 64-48 in his favour, the best margin on the club, and the plus-12 agrees.

Six points in his last ten. He is 30, a seventeenth overall pick, and spent most of a decade being criticised in a city that does not forgive defencemen. Philadelphia finished third in even-strength expected goals against, and he played more of them than anyone.