He’s 5-foot-8 and weighs 180 pounds. That's eight inches shorter and 30 pounds lighter than senior captain and NHL first-round draft pick Mark Mitera.

He’s from Spokane, Wash., which is better known for being the home of basketball powerhouse Gonzaga than producing solid hockey players.

And he’s undrafted in the NHL and played an atypically long four years of high school hockey before jumping to the much more competitive United States Hockey League.

All of that means nothing when you look at the season sophomore defenseman Chad Langlais has had.

Langlais leads the Michigan hockey team’s defense in scoring and plus-minus rating with 23 points (five goals, 18 assists) and a plus-29 rating. The next best blueliner in those categories? Junior captain Chris Summers, an NHL first-round pick, who has 17 points and a plus-22 plus-minus rating.

And that's not at all evident in his quiet persona.

“He’s a guy that he kind of fools you with his easy going (personality),” said Michigan coach Red Berenson. “It’s like some of those running backs that ... hardly look like they can even walk. Then they get the ball and nobody can catch them. Langlais has got a little bit of that.”

Though Langlais is a small defenseman, Wolverine assistant coach Billy Powers said that “pound for pound, he’s very strong and he’s hockey strong.” He’s difficult to push off the puck, which has helped Langlais become one of Michigan’s key offensive sparks when skating or passing the puck out of the team’s defensive zone. And it’s also why he’s a finalist for the CCHA’s offensive defenseman award, which will be handed out this evening.

“He’s got the hands of any forward in this league,” said junior defenseman Steve Kampfer, who played alongside Langlais nearly all of last season. “His stick handling is unbelievable. The way he skates, the way he can move up there is second to none.”

Langlais’s unquestionable offensive skill has led to him playing point on the Wolverines’ top power-play unit since he arrived in Ann Arbor a couple of seasons ago. In Michigan’s first CCHA playoff game on Friday night, Langlais notched a power-play goal and an assist late in the game.

But the numbers he’s put up of late — three goals and four assists in six games — aren’t just the product of playing on the power play, which can often be statistically rewarding for defensemen who start cycling the puck from the point and can get easy assists. Langlais has 11 even-strength points and 12 while playing with the man advantage this season.

Because of this, there's an understandable inclination to want to see how Langlais would play forward, but Berenson knows better from his assistant coaching days in the NHL.

“He looks like a forward playing defense, but I remember having Phil Housley in Buffalo,” said Berenson, referring to the second-leading all-time scorer amongst American NHL players. “Housley was a terrific player. He looked like a forward playing defense. So we moved him up to forward, he wasn’t very good. Moved him back to defense, he was great.

“My experience is not to ever fool with a kid like this. He’s made his mark being this kind of a player.”

And "this kind of player" is just what Berenson likes having back on defense.

With three forwards typically cycling in the zone against five opposing skaters, it’s important to be able to generate offense from the blue line, which Langlais does well.

“That’s what we want from all our ‘D’, ” Berenson said. “Not just points, but you want them to help the forwards create offense when we have the puck. So let’s move it, let’s get open, let’s get shots through, let’s make the right play with the puck.”

And even though Langlais came to Michigan as a 21-year-old freshman after two seasons in the USHL, Berenson is confident he still hasn’t reached his full potential.

“The one thing with older kids — sometimes they don’t get any better,” Berenson said. “But he’s getting better and that’s the good thing. His game is still growing.

“I think his next two years, that should be his coming-out party, if it isn’t already started.”