This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2024-25 report →
Austin Watson
Ottawa Senators Left Wing
More blocks per 60 than any of the 393 qualified forwards, the 5th-most hits, and the 3rd-most buried chair of 652 skaters.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012-13 | NSH | 6 | 1 | 0 | 1 | -2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 25.0 | 12:42 |
| 2015-16 | NSH | 57 | 3 | 7 | 10 | -4 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 55 | 5.5 | 10:00 |
| 2016-17 | NSH | 77 | 5 | 12 | 17 | +14 | 99 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 90 | 5.6 | 12:26 |
| 2017-18 | NSH | 76 | 14 | 5 | 19 | +2 | 123 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 96 | 14.6 | 12:20 |
| 2018-19 | NSH | 37 | 7 | 9 | 16 | +11 | 39 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 64 | 10.9 | 14:30 |
| 2019-20 | NSH | 53 | 6 | 8 | 14 | -9 | 65 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 50 | 12.0 | 11:37 |
| 2020-21 | OTT | 34 | 3 | 7 | 10 | -7 | 40 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 41 | 7.3 | 12:00 |
| 2021-22 | OTT | 67 | 10 | 6 | 16 | -3 | 91 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 88 | 11.4 | 11:59 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 407 | 49 | 54 | 103 | +2 | 489 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 488 | 10.0 | 12:03 |
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
67 games, 10 goals and 6 assists at 11:59 a night, minus-3, ninety-one penalty minutes, 88 shots. Eighteenth overall in 2010 by Nashville, eight seasons, 407 games, 103 points, 489 career penalty minutes.
The Finesse Game
23.3 per cent of his end-zone starts came in the attacking end — the 3rd-lowest of the 652 skaters who took two hundred end-zone starts. Ninety attacking-end starts against 296 in his own.
Two men in the league were buried more deeply and one of them is his own team-mate.
1.28 even-strength points per 60 is the 21st percentile and none of his points came on the power play — three seconds a night.
6.57 shots per 60 is the 35th percentile at 11.4 per cent, from a 29-foot median with thirty-nine per cent from the slot — the 84th and 10th percentiles. He shoots from too far out.
43.7 per cent of the expected goals is the 11th percentile and 44.0 per cent of the attempts the 8th. Out of that chair the shares are close to what should be expected, and they are still among the forty worst in the league.
His ice went 18-26 against an expectation of 22.69-29.17.
The Physical Game
4.70 blocks per 60 is the most of the 393 forwards who played forty games, at twelve minutes a night.
15.91 hits per 60 is the 5th-most of the 393 forwards, at 6-4 and 203 pounds.
2.32 penalties taken per 60 is the 4th-most of the 393 forwards and ninety-one penalty minutes came out of sixty-seven games. Against 1.79 drawn — the 12th-most — he is in more infractions in both directions than almost any forward in hockey.
Four separate physical columns in the top five per cent of the league, in one file.
The Intangibles
21.5 mph is the 6th percentile, 3.5 bursts per 60 the 26th, 9.37 miles per 60 the 27th. Slow, rarely sprinting, covering little ground.
He is 30 with 407 games and 489 penalty minutes. The blocks, the hits, the penalties and the chair are the most extreme fourth-line file in this batch, and on the club with the 28th-ranked penalty kill the last of those four is a bill it cannot pay.
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.
- perimeter· shoots from the outside, by choice or because he cannot get in
33.3% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 96th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
- hard-minutes· is started in his own end, against the other club's best
23% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 1st percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
“4.70 blocks per 60 is the most of the 393 forwards who played forty games, at twelve minutes a night.”
“15.91 hits per 60 is the 5th-most of the 393 forwards, at 6-4 and 203 pounds.”
“2.32 penalties taken per 60 is the 4th-most of the 393 forwards and ninety-one penalty minutes came out of sixty-seven games.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 701 minutes
- Expected goals
- 43.7%
- 13th pct
- Shot attempts
- 44%
- 10th 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: 18 for, 26 against. Expected: 22.7 and 29.2.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 20 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 — 57 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 · 67 games
- Top speed
- 21.5 mph
- 24th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.70 a game
- Distance
- 1.87 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 85.9 mph
- 44th 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 · 701 minutes at five-on-five
- Parker Kelly29%
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
- OTT took 47.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 43.7% — 3.4 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third line, 701 minutes at five-on-five — 32nd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dylan Gambrell | 41.8% | 46.8% | 34.2% |
| Nick Holden | 41.4% | 45.2% | 49.0% |
| Artem Zub | 46.7% | 42.2% | 47.2% |
41.8% together, 46.8% for him apart and 34.2% for Gambrell apart. He was carrying it: the share stayed with him and left Gambrell behind.
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
111 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 8 of them goals. His median goal came from 23 feet. 33% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 33% from beyond forty.