Austin Watson

This Season So Far

The 2023-24 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

9 goals and 2 assists in 75 games — 11 points — at 10:14 a night for Ottawa. Minus-7, 79 shots at 11.4 per cent, three shorthanded, two game-winners, 123 penalty minutes — the fourth-highest total in this book.

Nine goals and two assists is one of the most lopsided lines in the edition.

44.2 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five across 610 minutes, the 12th percentile, with his ice at 13-23 against an expectation of 18.81-23.78.

He started 25.5 per cent of his shifts in the attacking zone. That is the 1st percentile, and the seventh-lowest share of the 525 skaters in this book: 94 attacking draws against 274 defensive ones.

That number is the file. A 12th-percentile chance share out of the seventh-hardest deployment in the league is close to what should be expected, and the minus-7 out of it is a good result.

The Finesse Game

79 shots at a median of 32 feet, which is a long way out for a fourth-line winger.

Inside twenty feet: 23 shots on goal and four goals — 17.39 per cent, on the league forward rate of 17.71. From twenty to forty: 21 shots and three goals, 14.29 against a league rate of 11.05. Beyond forty: 27 shots and two goals, 7.41 per cent.

At or above the rate at all three distances on seventy-one shots on goal, which is a fine season and a small sample. An 11.4 per cent shooting percentage against a career 10.2 across 567 shots.

115 tracked attempts, six of them slap shots and 14 tip-ins. 87.2 mph at the 24th percentile.

Three shorthanded goals from a man with eight in total. He is on the first penalty-killing unit, he pressures the puck at the blue line, and a third of his output last season came while a man down.

The Physical Game

6-4 and 203 pounds, with 123 penalty minutes in 75 games and 612 in 482 career games — well over a minute a game across nine seasons.

1.62 miles a game at the 2nd percentile on ten minutes a night, at a top speed of 21.9 mph at the 34th and 0.8 bursts above twenty a game at the 45th. The mileage is ice time; the rest is ordinary.

He fights, he is nasty, and he takes liberties, and 612 penalty minutes in 482 games is what a club is buying when it dresses him.

He forechecks into contact at 6-4 and finishes checks on defencemen, which alongside the penalty kill is the entire role.

The Intangibles

Eighteenth overall in 2010, nine seasons, 482 games, 114 points across Nashville, Ottawa and Tampa Bay.

58 goals and 56 assists in nine years, and 612 penalty minutes. A first-round pick who has become a fourth-line enforcer with a penalty kill is a familiar arc and a longer career than most of them get.

He is thirty-one, joining a club that has won two of the last four and needs a fourth line that can start in its own end.

That is precisely what the numbers above describe: the 1st percentile of zone starts, a hundred and twenty-three penalty minutes, and three shorthanded goals.