Zach Werenski

Last Season

Twenty-two goals and 59 assists in 75 games — 81 points, plus-seven, at 26:37 a night, which is the heaviest workload of any player in this book.

The Finesse Game

An elite offensive defenceman in the middle of the best stretch of his career. The skating carries the puck out of danger and into the attacking zone, and the passing is the reason 59 assists arrived from a club that finished 26th on the power play.

Three hundred and eighty-two unblocked attempts — more than most forwards — from a median of 43 feet, with 59 per cent from beyond forty. Twenty-three goals came out of it, which for a point shot is a remarkable conversion and reflects how well he gets pucks through.

The Physical Game

Six foot two, 214, and he defends adequately rather than punishingly. Eighteen penalty minutes in 75 games of twenty-six-minute nights is exceptional discipline.

He is not clearing his crease. On a club that finished thirtieth on the penalty kill, that is worth noticing.

The Intangibles

The most striking gap in this edition. He was on the ice for fifty-five per cent of the expected goals, 88th percentile, and the expected goals ran 76.0 to 62.4 in his favour. The actual goals went 47-51 against.

That is a shortfall of roughly twenty-nine goals in one season, for one player, and it is the largest in this book. Some of it is Columbus finishing four goals below expectation as a club. Most of it is simply a season’s worth of pucks not going in when he was on the ice.

He is 29. Eighty-one points from a defenceman is a Norris-calibre season, and the plus-seven beside it is a lie in the other direction.