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He can take and make a pass. When he’s blocked at centre ice, he can executive a perfect dump-in and he’s happy to do so. He will not turn over the puck at the offensive blueline repeatedly. God no.

His eyes are up when he has the puck. When paired with better players (for example, now and then he played on a line with Milan Lucic and Anze Kopitar during his brief stint in L.A.), Versteeg makes sure that if those two guys are attacking and forechecking deep, he’s back near the blueline to cover. Always.

When a defenceman attacks low, Versteeg is there to cover. Always.

When he has the puck, he doesn’t over-handle it. He moves it fast. He understands that it moves faster than he does.

He will backcheck — hard. His head is on a swivel in the defensive zone. He’s constantly shoulder-checking and adjusting his position to cover the point. He makes every effort to block shooting and passing lanes. He cleverly interferes with opponents. Now and then he will knock them down in a buck battle if he can. When he covers an attacker in the slot, he stays with that man, instead of getting distracted and releasing him.

He’s not big or fast or massively skilled, but what the coach diagrams for the forwards to do, Versteeg will do. He’s got no chaos in his game. It’s all order, structure, being on the right side of the puck and of his man, taking his responsibilities seriously.

And, you know, having watched the Oilers in recent years, and having seen numerous highly skilled forwards who don’t always backcheck hard, who get confused on who to cover on the backcheck, who blow the d-zone to attack, who get drawn deep into the offensive zone when they should be backing off, who puck-watch in the d-zone instead of covering their man, and who turn the puck over repeatedly in the neutral zone, well, I’m good with a few more glue players like Versteeg and Lucic being added to the line-up.