This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Brandon Carlo
Boston Bruins Defense
Six-five, 227, the 89th percentile in shorthanded minutes, and 0.96 giveaways per 60 — one of the lowest rates at the position.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-17 | BOS | 82 | 6 | 10 | 16 | +9 | 59 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 88 | 6.8 | 20:49 |
| 2017-18 | BOS | 76 | 0 | 6 | 6 | +10 | 45 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 76 | 0.0 | 19:14 |
| 2018-19 | BOS | 72 | 2 | 8 | 10 | +22 | 47 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 116 | 1.7 | 20:55 |
| 2019-20 | BOS | 67 | 4 | 15 | 19 | +16 | 33 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 111 | 3.6 | 20:29 |
| 2020-21 | BOS | 27 | 3 | 1 | 4 | +1 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 43 | 7.0 | 18:43 |
| 2021-22 | BOS | 79 | 6 | 9 | 15 | +2 | 31 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 125 | 4.8 | 19:42 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 403 | 21 | 49 | 70 | +60 | 227 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 559 | 3.8 | 20:07 |
This Season So Far
The 2022-23 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
6 goals and 9 assists in 79 games — 15 points at 19:42 a night, plus-2, with 1 shorthanded goal on 125 shots and 31 penalty minutes.
52.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,306 minutes, the 72nd percentile among defencemen. His ice went 45-48 against an expectation of 49.53-45.08 — four and a half goals of scoring missing, and three more conceded than the chances predicted.
That is the lowest share of any Boston regular defenceman, which on a club whose blue line ran 61.2, 59.1 and 57.8 per cent says more about the company than the man.
2:44 a night shorthanded, the 89th percentile among defencemen, and four seconds a night of power play.
The Finesse Game
There is almost none, deliberately. 0.58 even-strength points per 60 is the 12th percentile among defencemen and 70 points in 403 career games.
125 attempts at a median of 53 feet with 6 per cent from inside 20 — a point shot and nothing else.
0.96 giveaways per 60 is one of the lowest rates at the position. He makes the simple play every time, and the whole of his value is that the puck goes where he intends it to go.
The Physical Game
6-5 and 227, and the reach is the method — he takes the puck at the blue line without leaving his feet or his position. 5.51 hits per 60 at the 70th percentile and 4.01 blocks at the 47th are ordinary numbers, and the defending is better than either of them suggests, because a great deal of what he does is prevent the entry rather than end the possession.
The skating is the limit: 21.6 mph top speed is the 32nd percentile and 8.14 miles per sixty is the 16th. He is not quick, he is long, and against a line that can beat him wide it shows.
The Intangibles
Thirty-seventh overall in 2015, 403 games by twenty-five, and a career plus-60 across all of them.
He is 25, signed through 2027. A shutdown right shot at that age on that term is exactly what a contending club wants and exactly what a rebuilding one covets, and with McAvoy out until December, Boston is about to find out how much of the last two years was Carlo and how much of it was who he stood beside.
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.
- durable· was available
79 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“6-5 and 227, and the reach is the method — he takes the puck at the blue line without leaving his feet or his position”
“2:44 a night shorthanded, the 89th percentile among defencemen”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,306 minutes
- Expected goals
- 52.3%
- 72nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 51.7%
- 71st 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: 45 for, 48 against. Expected: 49.5 and 45.1.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 34 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 649 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.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2021-22 · 79 games
- Top speed
- 21.6 mph
- 51st pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.38 a game
- Distance
- 2.67 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 94.1 mph
- 61st 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 90.4
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
2021-22 · 1306 minutes at five-on-five
- Mike Reilly30%
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, 2021-22
- The club
- BOS took 56.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 52.3% — 3.9 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 1,306 minutes at five-on-five — 90th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matt Grzelcyk | 54.4% | 50.7% | 63.3% |
| Taylor Hall | 51.7% | 52.7% | 60.5% |
| Mike Reilly | 56.4% | 50.5% | 58.4% |
54.4% together, 50.7% for him apart and 63.3% for Grzelcyk apart. He was the one being carried: the share went with Grzelcyk 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
156 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 6 of them goals. His median goal came from 51 feet. 6% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 78% from beyond forty.