Victor Hedman

Last Season

One goal and 16 assists in 33 games — 17 points, minus-one, at 18:52 a night with only ten penalty minutes. Forty-nine games missed.

His 1,164th career game and his 811th point. Six hundred and thirty-nine career assists.

He turns 36 in December.

The Finesse Game

The passing is intact and it was always the best part. Sixteen assists in 33 games is a fifty-point pace and the outlet from his own end remains among the cleanest in the league.

The shot has gone entirely: 84 unblocked attempts from a median of 51 feet, 81 per cent from beyond forty, one goal. A hundred and seventy-two goals in 1,164 games.

The Physical Game

Six foot seven and 244 pounds — the largest defenceman in this edition — and the reach is still the reason forwards cannot get around him when he is upright.

Ten penalty minutes in 33 games. The skating has slowed a great deal and the recovery step is gone.

The Intangibles

Forty-seven point five per cent of the expected goals, 31st percentile — the worst mark of any Tampa skater — across 469 minutes, on a club where seven players cleared the eightieth.

That is the number that matters on this page, and forty-nine games missed is the other one.

Four points in his last ten. He is 35, a Norris winner, a Conn Smythe winner, two Stanley Cups, and seventeen seasons for one organisation. The club has already built a blue line around Moser and D’Astous that does not need him to be what he was, which is the kindest thing that could have happened.