Wyatt Johnston

Last Season

Forty-five goals and 41 assists in all 82 games — 86 points, minus-five, at 20:07 a night. Twenty-seven of the goals came on the power play, which is an extraordinary share and the single most important number on this page.

The Finesse Game

He scores from the slot and almost nowhere else. Fifty-four per cent of his unblocked attempts came from inside twenty feet, median 19, with six per cent from beyond forty — one of the tightest distributions of any high-volume shooter in this book.

That is a player who has been placed in the best scoring ice in hockey — the left circle on a fifth-ranked power play — and who converts from there at a rate almost nobody matches.

The hands are quick and the release is deceptive. Forty-one assists is a real number too.

The Physical Game

Six foot one and 187 pounds, and light. Thirty-two penalty minutes. He wins position rather than battles and he is not going to be the man who makes room for himself.

The Intangibles

Here is the split that matters for anyone drafting him. At five-on-five he was on for 50.1 per cent of the expected goals — 54th percentile, dead average — and 45.3 per cent of the shot attempts, 13th percentile. The goals at five-on-five went 32-36 against.

So: an elite power-play forward and an ordinary even-strength one. Both are true, and eighty-six points disguises the second.

He is 23 and nine points in his last ten, six of them goals. If the power play regresses, so does he, and there is nothing underneath at even strength to catch him.