Zach Whitecloud

Last Season

Two goals and 15 assists in 78 games, minus-six, at 20:19 a night. His five-on-five work was done in Vegas.

The Finesse Game

None to speak of, by design. A hundred and one unblocked attempts from a median of 53 feet with five per cent inside twenty, and two goals. Twenty-three goals in 399 career games.

He makes the simple pass and defends. That is the job description in full.

The Physical Game

Six foot two, 210, and hard to play against without being reckless. Thirty penalty minutes in 78 games of top-four defensive work is excellent discipline. He blocks shots, boxes out, and kills penalties.

The Intangibles

The on-ice numbers were poor — 47.2 per cent of the expected goals, 28th percentile, with the goals 57-64 against across nearly 1,400 minutes — but they were poor while facing the other team’s best on a club that asked him to.

An undrafted defenceman from Manitoba with 399 NHL games and a Stanley Cup ring, which is a career almost nobody takes that route to.

He is 29 and arrives to give a young Calgary blue line somebody who has done it properly. On a team this poor, the value is in what he shows Parekh and Brzustewicz rather than what the results say.