This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Adam Pelech
New York Islanders Defense
Eleven of the twelve forwards who played four hundred attempts beside him took a better share of the expected goals with him than without.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | NYI | 9 | 0 | 2 | 2 | -1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0.0 | 17:35 |
| 2016-17 | NYI | 44 | 3 | 7 | 10 | -5 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 40 | 7.5 | 16:50 |
| 2017-18 | NYI | 78 | 3 | 16 | 19 | +7 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 106 | 2.8 | 19:16 |
| 2018-19 | NYI | 78 | 5 | 16 | 21 | +22 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 110 | 4.5 | 18:38 |
| 2019-20 | NYI | 38 | 1 | 8 | 9 | +4 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 49 | 2.0 | 21:08 |
| 2020-21 | NYI | 56 | 4 | 10 | 14 | +15 | 18 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 82 | 4.9 | 21:03 |
| 2021-22 | NYI | 78 | 3 | 25 | 28 | +20 | 42 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 104 | 2.9 | 21:17 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 381 | 19 | 84 | 103 | +62 | 138 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 499 | 3.8 | 19:41 |
This Season So Far
The 2022-23 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
78 games, 3 goals and 25 assists at 21:17 a night, plus-20, forty-two penalty minutes, 104 shots. Sixty-fifth overall in 2012, seven seasons, 381 games, 103 points, a career plus-62, all of it here.
The Finesse Game
The pair file is the report. Twelve forwards played at least four hundred five-on-five attempts beside him, and eleven of them took a better share of the expected goals with him than apart from him:
Kyle Palmieri 61.8 per cent with him and 42.4 apart. Mathew Barzal 57.2 and 44.8. Zach Parise 56.2 and 46.2. Oliver Wahlstrom 54.6 and 49.5. Matt Martin 53.8 and 43.0. Cal Clutterbuck 50.2 and 43.9. Casey Cizikas 49.4 and 39.3. Anders Lee 48.8 and 44.9. Jean-Gabriel Pageau 48.6 and 45.6. Anthony Beauvillier 47.6 and 45.3. Josh Bailey 45.3 and 43.3.
The exception is Brock Nelson, at 46.9 with him and 48.1 without. One name out of twelve, on a club that finished 30th in the league in attempt share.
1.06 even-strength points per 60 is the 65th percentile and none of his points came on the power play — eleven seconds a night.
1.77 takeaways per 60 is the 13th-most of the 202 defencemen who played forty games, against the 6th-percentile rate of penalties drawn at 6-3.
Eighteen per cent of his shots came from the slot, the 90th percentile among defencemen, at a 50-foot median.
51.3 per cent of the expected goals and 50.2 per cent of the attempts — the only Islander regular above fifty in either — out of 43.7 per cent offensive-zone starts, the 143rd-lowest of 652 skaters.
His ice went 61-44 against an expectation of 59.26-56.27: twelve fewer against than the model asked, on a club whose goaltending rated 3rd in the league.
The Physical Game
3.58 hits per 60 is the 45th percentile and 4.63 blocks the 65th at 6-3 and 212.
0.14 penalties drawn per 60 is the 6th percentile against 0.61 taken. Forty-two penalty minutes in seventy-eight games.
The Intangibles
2:18 short-handed a night is the 73rd percentile among defencemen, on a kill that finished 6th in the league.
7.95 miles per 60 is the 12th-least of the 192 defencemen the tracking covers, at a 22.2 mph top speed in the 59th percentile. He covers almost no ice and is never chasing.
He is 28 with 381 games for one club. The pair file is the most one-sided evidence in this chapter and possibly in this batch, and it belongs to a defenceman with three goals.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
18.0% of his attempts in the slot, 90th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
- durable· was available
78 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
51.3% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 44.6% for his club in the minutes he sat: +6.7, 98th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
“1.77 takeaways per 60 is the 13th-most of the 202 defencemen who played forty games, against the 6th-percentile rate of penalties drawn at 6-3.”
“2:18 short-handed a night is the 73rd percentile among defencemen, on a kill that finished 6th in the league.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,429 minutes
- Expected goals
- 51.3%
- 65th pct
- Shot attempts
- 50.2%
- 58th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 61 for, 44 against. Expected: 59.3 and 56.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 9 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.
Both bars are percentiles among the 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 66 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2021-22 · 78 games
- Top speed
- 22.2 mph
- 73rd pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.44 a game
- Distance
- 2.82 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 96.2 mph
- 78th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.5
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.4
A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.
Usual linemates
2021-22 · 1416 minutes at five-on-five
- Ryan Pulock33%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2021-22
- The club
- NYI took 46.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.3% — 4.4 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 1,429 minutes at five-on-five — 95th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scott Mayfield | 51.8% | 50.9% | 44.1% |
| Ryan Pulock | 51.4% | 51.2% | 44.7% |
| Jean-Gabriel Pageau | 48.6% | 52.4% | 45.6% |
51.8% together, 50.9% for him apart and 44.1% for Mayfield apart. Mayfield was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Mayfield than for him.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
133 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 3 of them goals. His median goal came from 47 feet. 15% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 69% from beyond forty.