Alec Martinez
Chicago Blackhawks Defense
Thirty-seven, blocks shots, and takes 83 per cent of his own attempts from beyond forty feet.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009-10 | LAK | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0.0 | 15:25 |
| 2010-11 | LAK | 60 | 5 | 11 | 16 | +11 | 18 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 74 | 6.8 | 15:17 |
| 2011-12 | LAK | 51 | 6 | 6 | 12 | -1 | 8 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 78 | 7.7 | 14:43 |
| 2012-13 | LAK | 27 | 1 | 4 | 5 | -2 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 3.3 | 16:01 |
| 2013-14 | LAK | 61 | 11 | 11 | 22 | +17 | 14 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 79 | 13.9 | 15:41 |
| 2014-15 | LAK | 56 | 6 | 16 | 22 | +9 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 103 | 5.8 | 19:56 |
| 2015-16 | LAK | 78 | 10 | 21 | 31 | +16 | 40 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 124 | 8.1 | 21:09 |
| 2016-17 | LAK | 82 | 9 | 30 | 39 | -17 | 24 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 144 | 6.3 | 21:38 |
| 2017-18 | LAK | 77 | 9 | 16 | 25 | +3 | 34 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 111 | 8.1 | 22:52 |
| 2018-19 | LAK | 60 | 4 | 14 | 18 | -2 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 78 | 5.1 | 21:22 |
| 2019-20 | LAK/VGK | 51 | 3 | 13 | 16 | -4 | 23 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 75 | 4.0 | 21:30 |
| 2020-21 | VGK | 53 | 9 | 23 | 32 | +26 | 12 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 85 | 10.6 | 22:34 |
| 2021-22 | VGK | 26 | 3 | 5 | 8 | +6 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 32 | 9.4 | 19:32 |
| 2022-23 | VGK | 77 | 3 | 11 | 14 | +30 | 29 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 76 | 4.0 | 19:13 |
| 2023-24 | VGK | 55 | 4 | 13 | 17 | -2 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 72 | 5.6 | 19:03 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 818 | 83 | 194 | 277 | +88 | 242 | 19 | 2 | 16 | 1167 | 7.1 | 19:36 |
This Season So Far
The 2024-25 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
Fifty-five games in Vegas, 4 goals and 13 assists, 19:03 a night and minus-2. He took 45.9 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 930 minutes, the 23rd percentile, and his ice went 33-33 against an expectation of 34.05-40.17.
Level on goals while the chances said he should have been seven under is a good season, and it came at 36 in the hardest minutes a Vegas defenceman is given.
The Finesse Game
Seventy-two shots at a median of 57 feet, with 2 per cent from inside 20 and 83 per cent from beyond 40. There is no version of this man’s game that involves getting close to a net.
The point shot is low, hard and aimed at a stick in front rather than at the goaltender, and it is what 19 career power-play goals were built on. He has 194 assists in 818 games and moves the puck quickly rather than cleverly.
The Physical Game
He blocks shots for a living and has for fifteen years. Six penalty minutes in 55 games is remarkable discipline for a defenceman playing nineteen minutes a night — he takes the body when it is there and takes nothing when it is not.
At 6-1 and 210 he is not going to overwhelm anybody at 37, and the crease is cleared by leverage and position rather than by force.
The Intangibles
Three Stanley Cups — two in Los Angeles, one in Vegas — and the overtime goal that won the 2014 final. A fourth-round pick who played 818 games and has never been on a losing club for long.
Chicago signed a thirty-seven-year-old for a season that will not go anywhere. What he brings is a standard of preparation and a right way to defend a two-goal lead, and the club has two teenagers on the blue line who have never seen either.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 930 minutes
- Expected goals
- 45.9%
- 24th pct
- Shot attempts
- 43.8%
- 11th 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: 33 for, 33 against. Expected: 34.0 and 40.2.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 13 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 201 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 54 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.
Usual linemates
2023-24 with VGK · 930 minutes at five-on-five
- Alex Pietrangelo66%
- Zach Whitecloud10%
- Nicolas Hague8%
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, 2023-24
- The club
- VGK took 51.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 45.9% — 5.3 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 930 minutes at five-on-five — 50th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alex Pietrangelo | 45.8% | 46.2% | 57.7% |
| Chandler Stephenson | 48.8% | 44.7% | 45.3% |
| Ivan Barbashev | 38.8% | 48.1% | 51.2% |
45.8% together, 46.2% for him apart and 57.7% for Pietrangelo apart. Pietrangelo was better away from him while his own share held, which is a mark against him more 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
104 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 30 feet. 2% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 83% from beyond forty.