Austin Watson
Detroit Red Wings Left Wing
Ninety-three penalty minutes in thirty-three games — the highest rate of any player in this edition — at seven minutes a night.
| 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 | OTT | 75 | 9 | 2 | 11 | -7 | 123 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 79 | 11.4 | 10:14 |
| 2023-24 | TBL | 33 | 2 | 2 | 4 | +2 | 93 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 17 | 11.8 | 7:16 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 515 | 60 | 58 | 118 | -3 | 705 | 1 | 8 | 8 | 584 | 10.3 | 11:29 |
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
Thirty-three games in Tampa Bay, 2 goals and 2 assists, 93 penalty minutes, 7:16 a night and plus-2. Ninety-three penalty minutes in 33 games is the highest rate of any player in this edition.
He took 39.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 236 minutes, the 2nd percentile, and his ice went 14-20 against an expectation of 6.45-9.91. Two hundred and thirty-six minutes is a very small sample and seven minutes a night is the role.
The Finesse Game
Seventeen shots in 33 games and 2 went in. Sixty goals in 515 career games at 10.27 per cent.
Fifty-eight career assists. There is no offensive game and there is no pretence of one; 118 points in 515 games is what a career of this shape produces.
The Physical Game
Seven hundred and five penalty minutes in 515 games and 93 in 33 last season. He will fight anybody and he takes liberties with players who have taken them with teammates.
He is 6-4 and 203 and finishes every check at speed. On a club whose penalty kill was 28th in the league, a winger who puts the club a man short three times a month is a genuine cost rather than a colour note.
The Intangibles
The 18th pick in 2010 out of Ann Arbor, ten seasons across Nashville, Ottawa and Tampa Bay, and 515 games. He has 8 career shorthanded goals, which is a real number for a man with 118 career points.
He is 32 and playing at home. Detroit signed a fourth-line enforcer to a roster that scored 278 goals and conceded 274.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 236 minutes
- Expected goals
- 39.4%
- 2nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 41.7%
- 4th 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: 14 for, 20 against. Expected: 6.5 and 9.9.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 18 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 — 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.
Usual linemates
2023-24 with TBL · 236 minutes at five-on-five
- Luke Glendening75%
- Tanner Jeannotnow LAK23%
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
- TBL took 50.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 39.4% — 11.1 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 236 minutes at five-on-five — 2nd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Darren Raddysh | 41.4% | 38.4% | 52.3% |
| Tyler Motte | 53.6% | 32.5% | 49.3% |
| Calvin de Haan | 40.5% | 38.8% | 54.9% |
41.4% together, 38.4% for him apart and 52.3% for Raddysh apart. He was the one being carried: the share went with Raddysh and did not follow 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
24 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 52 feet. 33% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 33% from beyond forty.