Alexander Edler

Thirty-six years old, the 10th-best even-strength scoring rate of 202 defencemen, and not one power-play point.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2006-07	VAN	22	1	2	3	+3	6	0	0	0	10	10.0	11:27
2007-08	VAN	75	8	12	20	+6	42	4	0	0	124	6.5	21:20
2008-09	VAN	80	10	27	37	+11	54	5	0	1	145	6.9	21:08
2009-10	VAN	76	5	37	42	0	40	2	0	0	161	3.1	22:39
2010-11	VAN	51	8	25	33	+13	24	5	0	1	121	6.6	24:17
2011-12	VAN	82	11	38	49	0	34	5	1	0	228	4.8	23:52
2012-13	VAN	45	8	14	22	-5	37	5	0	0	113	7.1	23:51
2013-14	VAN	63	7	15	22	-39	50	4	0	0	178	3.9	23:17
2014-15	VAN	74	8	23	31	+13	54	5	0	2	175	4.6	23:59
2015-16	VAN	52	6	14	20	-8	46	3	0	0	111	5.4	24:27
2016-17	VAN	68	6	15	21	-20	36	2	0	0	138	4.3	24:19
2017-18	VAN	70	6	28	34	-18	68	1	0	2	172	3.5	24:17
2018-19	VAN	56	10	24	34	+3	54	4	0	2	128	7.8	24:34
2019-20	VAN	59	5	28	33	+13	62	1	0	1	118	4.2	22:37
2020-21	VAN	52	0	8	8	-8	58	0	0	0	99	0.0	20:54
2021-22	LAK	41	3	16	19	+18	34	0	0	1	54	5.6	18:28
2022-23 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	966	102	326	428	-18	699	46	1	10	2075	4.9	22:44

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

Forty-one games, three goals and 16 assists, 18:28 a night, plus-18 — the third-best plus-minus on the club, at 36, in his sixteenth season and first outside Vancouver.

966 games and 428 points: ninth in career games among the 223 defencemen in this book.

The Finesse Game

1.62 even-strength points per 60 is the 10th-best of the 202 qualified defencemen — and none of his nineteen points came on the power play. That combination is nearly unique in the edition: a defenceman scoring at a first-pair rate with zero of it coming from the advantage.

4.28 shots per 60 is the 47th percentile at a 56-foot median, the 4th-longest of 202. He shoots from the point and only from the point; thirteen per cent from the slot.

56.6 per cent of the expected goals is the 94th percentile and 56.5 per cent of the attempts the 95th — the best defence figures on the club. His ice went 31-22 against an expectation of 35.38-27.17.

Matt Roy took 62.0 per cent of the chances beside him across 572 attempts and 49.8 without him; Trevor Moore, 62.9 and 54.3. Kopitar reached 60.1 with him. At 36, in forty-one games, he was the most effective defenceman on this roster by share.

The Physical Game

5.55 blocks per 60 is the 85th percentile, at 36, in a season he played forty-one games of. 4.44 hits per 60 is the 54th. He is 6-4 and 210 and still finishing.

0.87 penalties drawn per 60 is the 8th-most of 202 defencemen and 1.35 taken is the 11th-most, and the net is the 18th percentile. Thirty-four penalty minutes in forty-one games: he is in everything, and the ledger comes out against him.

The Intangibles

The skating is where the age is. 21.2 mph is the 26th-slowest of 192 defencemen and 0.3 bursts over 20 mph per 60 is the 6th-fewest — he essentially never breaks twenty miles an hour. 8.25 miles per 60 is the 28th percentile.

A 36-year-old who cannot skate and takes fifty-six per cent of the chances is the clearest reminder in this chapter that the chips do not measure defending. What they cannot see — gap, angle, where the stick is — is the entire reason the shares look like that. The reason for caution is the other column: forty-one games, and 52 in the season before it.

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
he lacks itraised, and he does not have it

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.

perimeter· shoots from the outside, by choice or because he cannot get in
82.9% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 90th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
56.6% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 51.9% for his club in the minutes he sat: +4.7, 95th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
shot-blockera strength· gets in front of it
“5.55 blocks per 60 is the 85th percentile, at 36, in a season he played forty-one games of.”
fouls-when-beatenhe lacks it· the stick foul that follows losing a step
“0.87 penalties drawn per 60 is the 8th-most of 202 defencemen and 1.35 taken is the 11th-most, and the net is the 18th percentile.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 653 minutes

Expected goals: 56.6%; 93rd pct
Shot attempts: 56.5%; 93rd pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 31 for, 22 against. Expected: 35.4 and 27.2.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

38th

Numbers

93rd

The numbers rank him 55 points above where the report does. 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 — 58 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 · 41 games

Top speed: 21.2 mph; 35th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.10 a game
Distance: 2.54 miles a game
Hardest shot: 93.9 mph; 60th pct

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 · 653 minutes at five-on-five

Matt Roy43%
Troy Stechernow ARI19%
Sean Walker12%

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: LAK took 52.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 56.6% — 3.8 above the club he did it on.
The role: 653 minutes at five-on-five — 28th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Matt Roy	62.0%	52.5%	49.8%
Anze Kopitar	60.1%	54.9%	52.2%
Phillip Danault	55.5%	57.0%	56.8%

62.0% together, 52.5% for him apart and 49.8% for Roy apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.

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

76 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 3 of them goals. His median goal came from 33 feet. 7% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 83% from beyond forty.