If Morgan Freeman played hockey: right wing, rated 83

Morgan Freeman as a hockey player: scouting report

Morgan Freeman would play right wing, and he would play it like the most trusted voice in the room, because that is what he has been for decades. Whether narrating March of the Penguins or carrying The Shawshank Redemption as Red, he has a gift for slowing a story down until everyone is hanging on the next line. On the ice that is a winger who never rushes, holds the puck until a lane opens and then delivers the pass at exactly the right moment. Passing is one of the best marks on his card.

The other is goaltending, and his career explains it. Freeman served in the Air Force as a young man, worked for years on stage and on children's television with The Electric Company, and became a major film star later than most of his peers. That patience is the core of a goalie. He has already spent time in a sports story, too: he won the Academy Award for Million Dollar Baby, set in a boxing gym, and played Nelson Mandela in Invictus, a film about rugby. His defense is reliable and his skating is steady.

Physical play is his weak spot, and his shot is good rather than great, so he is a setup man more than a finisher. Goalie is a strong second spot and center a workable third. Draft him as the veteran presence on a second line, pair him with a sniper who wants the puck in the slot and a hard working center, and let him tell the rest of the line where to be.

Plays like A veteran playmaking winger who slows the game to his pace

Put Morgan Freeman in your lineup

8 rolls, a starting six and a bench, 82 games. Can you go 82-0? Free, no account.