Quinton Byfield

Last Season

Twenty-four goals and 49 points in 79 games on twenty minutes a night. Steady progress rather than a leap, which is now the pattern: he has improved every year without ever having the season that settles the argument about him.

The Finesse Game

The skating is genuinely remarkable for the size. He gets to top speed in four or five strides and he can carry the puck through the neutral zone at that speed without losing it, which forces defencemen to back off and gives him the blue line for free. Very few players this big enter the zone with control this often.

The hands are good in close and the reach lets him protect pucks that smaller forwards would lose. What is still developing is the finishing: 180 shots produced 24 goals, and a lot of his chances come from having beaten everyone to a spot rather than from creating something with the puck on his stick.

He was drafted as a centre and has spent much of his career on the wing, which is either a development decision or an admission. He spent most of last season on the top line’s right side.

The Physical Game

Two hundred and thirty pounds, and this is the part that still frustrates. He is not a punishing forechecker and he does not use his frame to take the ice he is entitled to. He absorbs contact well, protects the puck well, and initiates very little.

There is a version of this player who is impossible to defend, and it involves him deciding to be heavy.

The Intangibles

The second-overall pick in 2020, and the expectations attached to that have followed him through a slow start. He is twenty-four this season, which is around when big forwards usually arrive.

The tools are top-line tools and have been all along. Whether he becomes a first-line centre or settles as a very good complementary winger is probably decided in the next two years.