This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Alex DeBrincat
Ottawa Senators Right Wing
Forty-one goals from one of the seven shortest skaters in the book, at 5-8 and 180 pounds.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-18 | CHI | 82 | 28 | 24 | 52 | +6 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 181 | 15.5 | 14:48 |
| 2018-19 | CHI | 82 | 41 | 35 | 76 | 0 | 15 | 13 | 0 | 3 | 220 | 18.6 | 17:42 |
| 2019-20 | CHI | 70 | 18 | 27 | 45 | -10 | 15 | 10 | 0 | 4 | 207 | 8.7 | 17:30 |
| 2020-21 | CHI | 52 | 32 | 24 | 56 | +3 | 12 | 9 | 1 | 7 | 155 | 20.6 | 20:32 |
| 2021-22 | CHI | 82 | 41 | 37 | 78 | -13 | 19 | 14 | 0 | 6 | 270 | 15.2 | 20:51 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 368 | 160 | 147 | 307 | -14 | 67 | 52 | 1 | 21 | 1033 | 15.5 | 18:07 |
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
82 games for Chicago, 41 goals and 37 assists for 78 points at 20:51 a night, minus-13, nineteen penalty minutes, 270 shots. Thirty-ninth overall in 2016, five seasons, 368 games, 307 points.
Forty-one goals is 13th in the league and 270 shots is 14th. He has scored 160 in 368 games.
The Finesse Game
5-8 and 180 pounds. No skater in this edition of 651 is shorter; six match him at 5-8 and none of them scored twenty-five goals.
9.47 shots per 60 is the 66th-most of the 393 forwards who played forty games, at 15.2 per cent — the 82nd percentile — against a career rate of 15.5 across 1,033 shots. The finishing is not a fluke; it is what he does.
Forty-seven per cent of his shots came from the slot at a 26-foot median, both a shade below ordinary. He does not live in the paint and he scores forty goals anyway.
2.21 even-strength points per 60 is the 72nd percentile and thirty-six per cent of his points came on the power play, from 3:37 a night at the 96th.
2.35 takeaways per 60 is the 90th percentile among forwards and 10.11 miles per 60 the 89th, at 5-8 and 180 pounds.
49.4 per cent of the expected goals and 48.7 per cent of the attempts on a club that finished 29th and 29th in those two measures — he is comfortably the best of a bad group — out of 64.4 per cent offensive-zone starts, the 18th-highest of the 652 skaters who took two hundred end-zone starts.
That is one of the twenty softest chairs in hockey and it needs saying beside everything above.
The Physical Game
3.54 hits per 60 is the 45th percentile and 1.23 blocks the 26th at 180 pounds.
0.28 penalties taken per 60 is the 8th percentile and nineteen penalty minutes came out of eighty-two games. Against 0.84 drawn, the net is the 90th.
The Intangibles
22.4 mph is the 50th percentile and 3.8 bursts per 60 the 32nd, against 10.11 miles per 60 at the 89th. He works far harder than he is fast.
88.3 mph is the 37th percentile for shot speed, which is the one measurement that does not fit a forty-goal season and is the clearest evidence that this is placement rather than power.
He is 24 with 160 career goals. The shot volume, the conversion rate and the work rate are three years old and stable. The deployment was extremely soft and Ottawa’s is unlikely to be softer.
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.
- durable· was available
82 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
49.4% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 43.4% for his club in the minutes he sat: +6.0, 92nd percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
- workhorse· carries the load at even strength
15:43 a game at five-on-five, 97th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
- sheltered· is started in the attacking end
64% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 96th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
“2.35 takeaways per 60 is the 90th percentile among forwards and 10.11 miles per 60 the 89th, at 5-8 and 180 pounds.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,289 minutes
- Expected goals
- 49.4%
- 51st pct
- Shot attempts
- 48.7%
- 43rd 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: 59 for, 62 against. Expected: 50.8 and 52.1.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 23 points above where the numbers do. 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. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
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 · 82 games
- Top speed
- 22.4 mph
- 65th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.32 a game
- Distance
- 3.51 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 88.3 mph
- 57th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.0
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.1
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 with CHI · 1289 minutes at five-on-five
- Patrick Kane57%
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
- CHI took 45.4% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.4% — 4.0 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First line, 1,289 minutes at five-on-five — 89th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Patrick Kane | 48.9% | 50.1% | 44.5% |
| Seth Jones | 50.5% | 48.4% | 45.1% |
| Dylan Strome | 52.1% | 47.0% | 43.8% |
48.9% together, 50.1% for him apart and 44.5% for Kane apart. Kane was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Kane 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
350 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 44 of them goals. His median goal came from 20 feet. 32% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 14% from beyond forty.