Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

8

Ben Chiarot

Detroit Red Wings Defense

Four hundred and fifty-eight penalty minutes in 642 games, nineteen minutes a night at 33, and a career minus-44.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2013-14WPG1000-30000010:47
2014-15WPG40268+522000375.417:01
2015-16WPG701910-943000741.414:27
2016-17WPG5921012+233000494.115:19
2017-18WPG5721214+1532000573.515:17
2018-19WPG7851520+6620011114.518:37
2019-20MTL6991221+5610031306.923:08
2020-21MTL41167-1650100811.221:47
2021-22MTL/FLA7491726-14482011436.322:51
2022-23DET7651419-31510001104.520:36
2023-24DET7751520-4560011074.719:47
2024-25 so far
Career64241116157-444583068994.619:00

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

Seventy-seven games, 5 goals and 15 assists, 56 penalty minutes, 19:47 a night and minus-4. He took 44.9 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,322 minutes, the 18th percentile, and his ice went 58-58 against an expectation of 47.52-58.22.

The goals against arrived exactly as the chances predicted and eleven more went in the other way, which is the club’s shooting rather than his defending. Nineteen and three-quarter minutes a night at 33 on the second pair.

The Finesse Game

One hundred and seven shots at a median of 51 feet with 68 per cent from beyond 40, and 5 went in. Forty-one goals in 642 career games at 4.56 per cent.

One hundred and sixteen career assists. The first pass is the simple one and it is made quickly. He does not carry the puck out and does not try to — the skating has never been there and at 33 it is the limitation that decides which minutes he can play.

The Physical Game

Four hundred and fifty-eight penalty minutes in 642 games is the record of a defenceman who plays the game in the corners and the crease. He punishes people along the wall at 6-3 and 222 and he does it every shift.

He blocks shots and clears the front of his own net, and he is genuinely hard to move once he has position. Fifty-six penalty minutes in 77 games is a moderate rate for a man who plays this way and a fair share of it comes after being beaten to a spot.

The Intangibles

A fourth-round pick in 2009 out of Hamilton, eleven seasons and 642 games across Winnipeg, Montreal, Florida and Detroit, and a run to a final in Montreal.

He is 33 on a club whose defence is a 23-year-old and four men over thirty. A career minus-44 says what kind of clubs those have been.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,322 minutes

Expected goals
44.9%
18th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
43.7%
10th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 58 for, 58 against. Expected: 47.5 and 58.2.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
26th
Numbers
18th

The two rank him within 8 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 — 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.

Usual linemates

2023-24 · 1322 minutes at five-on-five

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
DET took 45.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 44.9% — 1.0 below the club he did it on.
The role
First pair, 1,322 minutes at five-on-five — 91st percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Jeff Petry45.1%44.7%51.2%
Alex DeBrincat50.5%42.7%47.6%
Lucas Raymond47.8%43.8%49.4%

45.1% together, 44.7% for him apart and 51.2% for Petry apart. Petry was better away from him while his own share held, which is a mark against him more 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

147 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 5 of them goals. His median goal came from 24 feet. 10% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 68% from beyond forty.