Armchair Hockey Scout Beta
17

Ben Hutton

Vegas Golden Knights Defense

A career 2.94 per cent across eight hundred shots.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2015-16VAN7512425-21140001041.019:52
2016-17VAN7151419-22312011303.920:30
2017-18VAN61066-9230001030.018:25
2018-19VAN6951520-23431011144.422:21
2019-20LAK6541216+5140011143.518:16
2020-21ANA/TOR38145-1311000541.818:28
2021-22VGK5831013+732000783.915:28
2022-23VGK31358+16000525.816:00
2023-24VGK412810+1217000673.016:15
2024-25 so far
Career5092498122-631913038162.918:47

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

41 games, 2 goals and 8 assists for 10 points, 17 penalty minutes, 16:15 a night and plus-12. He took 54.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 611 minutes, the 84th percentile, and his ice went 30-19 against an expectation of 25.05-20.97.

Five goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and two goals of goaltending above them. Fifty-four point four per cent of the chances is the highest share of any defenceman on this roster.

The Finesse Game

80 attempts at a median of 55 feet with 75 per cent of them from beyond forty and 10 per cent from inside twenty, 65 of those on goal, converted at 3.0 per cent against a career 2.94 across 816 shots.

Ninety-eight career assists against 24 goals in 509 games. A career 2.94 per cent is the seventh-lowest rate of any defenceman in this edition who has taken five hundred shots; sixty-five of his 80 attempts reached the goaltender and almost none of them went in.

The Physical Game

He is 6-3 and 209 and took 17 penalty minutes.

191 career penalty minutes in 509 games. He is a reasonable size and defends by position rather than by weight; there is very little crease-clearing in his game and the penalty totals reflect a man who does not engage.

The Intangibles

One hundred and forty-seventh overall in 2012 by Vancouver, nine seasons, and Vegas is his fifth organisation.

A career minus-63 in 509 games. He was a fifth-round pick who played four seasons in Vancouver, and his three seasons here are three of the four positive ones in his career.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 611 minutes

Expected goals
54.4%
84th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
51.2%
65th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 30 for, 19 against. Expected: 25.1 and 21.0.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
62nd
Numbers
84th

The numbers rank him 22 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 72 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 · 611 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
VGK took 51.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 54.4% — 3.2 above the club he did it on.
The role
611 minutes at five-on-five — 26th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Ivan Barbashev52.5%55.2%49.5%
William Karlsson65.0%50.9%56.8%
Zach Whitecloud59.8%52.9%49.5%

52.5% together, 55.2% for him apart and 49.5% for Barbashev apart. Barbashev was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Barbashev 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

80 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 38 feet. 10% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 75% from beyond forty.