Brenden Dillon

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

2 goals and 21 assists in 82 games — 23 points — at 19:35 a night. Plus-2, 83 shots at 2.4 per cent, 76 penalty minutes.

23 points is a career high by one, in his twelfth season, at thirty-two.

53.7 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 76th percentile — the best of any defenceman on this roster who played a thousand minutes — across 1,363 minutes, with his ice at 46-52 against an expectation of 57.35-49.39.

Eleven fewer goals scored on his ice than the chances called for and three more allowed — a fourteen-goal swing against him, on the best underlying share on the club. That is the season in one row, and none of it is his doing.

He started 45.2 per cent of his shifts in the attacking zone, the 29th percentile: 323 attacking draws against 391 defensive ones. Hard starts, and the best chance share on the blue line out of them.

The Finesse Game

83 shots at a median of 54 feet, with 71 per cent of his attempts from beyond forty and 5 per cent from inside twenty.

Beyond forty feet: 65 shots on goal and no goals. From twenty to forty: 11 shots and one goal. Inside twenty: five shots and one goal.

Sixty-five shots on goal from the point, nothing, on a 24.6 per cent slap share and a shot measured at 91.8 mph, the 57th percentile. He is the fourth man on this blue line and he is the one who got nothing, and there is no distinguishing feature that predicts it.

29 goals in 815 career games at 3.3 per cent — one of the lowest career shooting rates of any defenceman in this book with four hundred games.

147 career assists against 29 goals. The 21 assists last season are the most he has managed and they came from moving the puck up rather than from anything at the offensive line.

The Physical Game

6-4 and 225 pounds, with 76 penalty minutes in 82 games and 766 in 815 career games — very nearly a penalty minute a game across twelve seasons.

Top speed 22.1 mph at the 41st percentile, 0.3 bursts above twenty a game at the 14th, 2.72 miles a game at the 62nd. Slow, and covering ordinary ground.

He is punishing, he clears his crease, and he fights when the club needs it, and at 6-4 and 225 pounds on the hard half of a good blue line that is the entire job.

He is very hard to move off the front of his own net, and the 76th-percentile chance share out of the 29th percentile of starts is what that looks like in a column.

The feet are the limit and always have been. He is beaten wide by anybody quick and defends by taking the man early instead.

The Intangibles

Undrafted, twelve seasons, 815 games, 176 points across Dallas, San Jose, Washington and Winnipeg.

29 goals and 147 assists, and a plus-46.

He is thirty-two, and he has played eight hundred NHL games without ever being drafted.

An undrafted defenceman with eight hundred games and seven hundred and sixty-six penalty minutes is a career built entirely out of being difficult to play against. The 76th-percentile chance share out of hard starts says it is still working.