This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Bowen Byram
Colorado Avalanche Defense
Ten goals in 42 games from a 22-year-old who has not yet played sixty in a season.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | COL | 19 | 0 | 2 | 2 | +1 | 23 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 21 | 0.0 | 17:31 |
| 2021-22 | COL | 30 | 5 | 12 | 17 | +7 | 12 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 49 | 10.2 | 18:48 |
| 2022-23 | COL | 42 | 10 | 14 | 24 | +7 | 38 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 65 | 15.4 | 21:53 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 91 | 15 | 28 | 43 | +15 | 73 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 135 | 11.1 | 19:57 |
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
10 goals and 14 assists in 42 games, plus-7, 21:53 a night. Extrapolate at your peril, but that is a twenty-goal pace from a defenceman who turned 22 in June.
49.2 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 45th percentile, with his ice at 33-32 against an expectation of 32.44-33.48 — dead average in every direction, which for a third-year defenceman on the third pair is a perfectly good answer.
Three seasons, 91 games. He has never played more than 42 in a year. Concussions cost him most of 2021-22; the 2022-23 absences were separate injuries, and the pattern is the point rather than any one cause.
The Finesse Game
65 shots at a median of 35 feet, 41 per cent from beyond forty and 20 per cent from inside twenty — much closer in than the other defencemen on this roster, and deliberately so.
Inside forty feet: 37 shots on goal, eight goals, 21.62 per cent. Beyond forty: 28 shots, two goals. Almost all of the scoring comes from joining the rush and arriving late, not from the point.
That is an unusual profile for a defenceman and it is the most interesting thing about him. Ten goals on 65 shots is a 15.4 per cent conversion rate; the concern is that it is 65 shots.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 205, and he is genuinely fast: 23.5 mph at the 97th percentile, and 3.12 miles a game at the 86th. Of the fifty-nine defencemen in the league who covered three miles a game, only Noah Hanifin registered a higher top speed.
38 penalty minutes in 42 games is a high rate and reads as a young defenceman defending with his stick when the read goes wrong.
The durability is the whole question. Head injuries do not resolve on a schedule and this book has no way to price one.
The Intangibles
Fourth overall in 2019 — the same slot Makar came from two years earlier, on the same club, which is a coincidence with consequences: he has spent his whole career behind the best defenceman in hockey.
A Cup at 21. Ninety-one games at 22. He is the most valuable trade asset Colorado has and also, if the health holds, the one they would most regret moving.
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.
- slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
25.5% of his attempts in the slot, 98th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
- workhorse· carries the load at even strength
19:21 a game at five-on-five, 93rd percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
“23.5 mph at the 97th percentile, and 3.12 miles a game at the 86th.”
“Almost all of the scoring comes from joining the rush and arriving late, not from the point.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 813 minutes
- Expected goals
- 49.2%
- 45th pct
- Shot attempts
- 50.7%
- 59th 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: 33 for, 32 against. Expected: 32.4 and 33.5.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 2 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 638 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 64 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, 2022-23 · 42 games
- Top speed
- 23.5 mph
- 99th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.62 a game
- Distance
- 3.12 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 90.8 mph
- 45th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.5
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.0
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
2022-23 · 813 minutes at five-on-five
- Josh Manson16%
- Jack Johnson13%
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, 2022-23
- The club
- COL took 52.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.2% — 3.3 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 813 minutes at five-on-five — 40th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Samuel Girard | 49.4% | 49.1% | 53.1% |
| Mikko Rantanen | 45.6% | 51.4% | 55.0% |
| J.T. Compher | 49.0% | 49.4% | 53.9% |
49.4% together, 49.1% for him apart and 53.1% for Girard apart. Girard 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
94 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 10 of them goals. His median goal came from 31 feet. 20% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 41% from beyond forty.