Brendan Smith
Columbus Blue Jackets Defense
36 years old, 32 games, and a seventh defenceman signed to be a presence rather than a player.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011-12 | DET | 14 | 1 | 6 | 7 | +3 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 13 | 7.7 | 15:38 |
| 2012-13 | DET | 34 | 0 | 8 | 8 | +1 | 36 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 33 | 0.0 | 18:24 |
| 2013-14 | DET | 71 | 5 | 14 | 19 | -2 | 68 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 90 | 5.6 | 18:23 |
| 2014-15 | DET | 76 | 4 | 9 | 13 | -2 | 68 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 88 | 4.5 | 17:53 |
| 2015-16 | DET | 63 | 3 | 12 | 15 | +1 | 62 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 82 | 3.7 | 17:36 |
| 2016-17 | DET/NYR | 51 | 3 | 6 | 9 | +1 | 63 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 62 | 4.8 | 19:14 |
| 2017-18 | NYR | 44 | 1 | 7 | 8 | +2 | 69 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 66 | 1.5 | 17:10 |
| 2018-19 | NYR | 63 | 4 | 9 | 13 | -7 | 71 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 66 | 6.1 | 15:18 |
| 2019-20 | NYR | 62 | 3 | 5 | 8 | -12 | 71 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 45 | 6.7 | 11:06 |
| 2020-21 | NYR | 48 | 5 | 5 | 10 | +3 | 73 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 58 | 8.6 | 16:26 |
| 2021-22 | CAR | 45 | 4 | 4 | 8 | +6 | 36 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 63 | 6.3 | 13:55 |
| 2022-23 | NJD | 60 | 0 | 5 | 5 | +3 | 63 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 58 | 0.0 | 15:33 |
| 2023-24 | NJD | 63 | 5 | 10 | 15 | -3 | 61 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 60 | 8.3 | 16:06 |
| 2024-25 | DAL | 32 | 1 | 5 | 6 | -9 | 33 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 27 | 3.7 | 13:13 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 726 | 39 | 105 | 144 | -15 | 787 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 811 | 4.8 | 16:15 |
This Season So Far
The 2025-26 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
1 goal and 5 assists in 32 games for 6 points, minus-9, on 13:13 a night with Dallas.
27 shots in 32 games. The role is a seventh defenceman who plays when somebody is hurt, and 32 games is what that produces.
The Finesse Game
Almost none remaining. The first pass is slow and the puck decisions under pressure are the reason the minutes have shrunk every year.
6 points in 32 games is roughly his rate over the last four seasons.
The Physical Game
6-2 and 200, and this is the entire remaining case. He hits, he fights, and he is willing to be the man who answers for a teammate.
33 penalty minutes in 32 games is a very high rate at 36 and it is what he is being paid for. On a club that finished 22nd on the penalty kill, that arithmetic deserves a harder look than it usually gets.
The Intangibles
Fifteen seasons, six organisations, and a reputation as one of the more respected veterans in the league.
At 36 the projection is 30 games and a room presence. Whether a club two points out of the playoffs should be spending a roster spot on that is a fair question.
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.
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
- he lacks itraised, and he does not have it
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.
“He hits, he fights, and he is willing to be the man who answers for a teammate.”
“33 penalty minutes in 32 games is a very high rate at 36 and it is what he is being paid for.”
“The first pass is slow and the puck decisions under pressure are the reason the minutes have shrunk every year.”
“Fifteen seasons, six organisations, and a reputation as one of the more respected veterans in the league.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 369 minutes
- Expected goals
- 47.5%
- 31st pct
- Shot attempts
- 50.1%
- 54th 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: 11 for, 22 against. Expected: 15.8 and 17.5.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe 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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 63 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, 2024-25 · 32 games
- Top speed
- 21.3 mph
- 34th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.59 a game
- Distance
- 1.88 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 89.1 mph
- 39th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.6
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 89.7
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
2024-25 with DAL · 369 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, 2024-25
- The club
- DAL took 50.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.5% — 3.2 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 369 minutes at five-on-five — 9th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mathew Dumba | 47.6% | 47.4% | 51.1% |
| Matt Duchene | 40.6% | 50.9% | 52.3% |
| Mason Marchment | 43.2% | 49.3% | 50.2% |
47.6% together, 47.4% for him apart and 51.1% for Dumba apart. Dumba 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
48 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 1 of them goals. His median goal came from 44 feet. 17% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 65% from beyond forty.