Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

2

Brian Dumoulin

Anaheim Ducks Defense

Fifty-four per cent of the chances in Seattle — the best number any man on this roster produced last season, and he was somewhere else.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2013-14PIT6011+1400030.019:14
2014-15PIT810102000425.015:40
2015-16PIT7901616+11140001010.018:53
2016-17PIT7011415014000781.320:33
2017-18PIT8051318-5300011024.920:37
2018-19PIT7632023+3120000993.021:02
2019-20PIT28178+1710010352.921:03
2020-21PIT4141014+1812000508.022:21
2021-22PIT7631518+2424000913.321:49
2022-23PIT8212425-416000821.220:38
2023-24SEA8061016+320001698.717:01
2024-25 so far
Career62625130155+961660127143.520:11

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

6 goals and 10 assists in 80 games for Seattle — 16 points at 17:01 a night, plus-3, on 69 shots with 20 penalty minutes. Six goals is very nearly a quarter of the twenty-five he has scored in 626 NHL games.

54.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,236 minutes, the 85th percentile — the best figure any player on this roster produced last season. His ice went 44-42 against an expectation of 49.75-41.68.

The Finesse Game

69 attempts at a median of 53 feet, with 72 per cent from beyond 40 and 6 per cent from inside 20. Twenty-five goals in eleven NHL seasons; the shot is not why he is here.

The first pass is early, short and to the correct side of the ice, and it is the whole of his puck game. He does not carry it out and he does not need to — he gets it to somebody who can before the forecheck arrives.

The Physical Game

6-4 and 215. He clears the front of his own net and blocks shots, and the size is used for position rather than for punishment — he arrives, he takes the space, and the check is finished without being sought out.

20 penalty minutes in 80 games and 166 in 626 for his career. He does not retaliate, he does not take liberties, and he is one of the least penalised defencemen of his generation.

The Intangibles

Fifty-first overall in 2009 by Carolina, traded to Pittsburgh before he played a game there, and two Stanley Cups and a career plus-96 across 626 games.

He is 33 and was signed here in the summer. He is the most defensively responsible man on this blue line by a distance — a defenceman who has spent a decade being the quiet half of a pair and is very good at it, arriving on a club that has nobody to be the loud half.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,236 minutes

Expected goals
54.4%
85th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
53.9%
85th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 44 for, 42 against. Expected: 49.8 and 41.7.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
38th
Numbers
85th

The numbers rank him 47 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 41 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.

Usual linemates

2023-24 with SEA · 1236 minutes at five-on-five

  • Justin Schultzoff the roster54%
  • Adam Larsson19%
  • Ryker Evans14%

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
SEA took 50.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 54.4% — 3.6 above the club he did it on.
The role
Third pair, 1,236 minutes at five-on-five — 85th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Justin Schultz53.6%55.5%49.2%
Yanni Gourde54.8%54.2%46.3%
Eeli Tolvanen55.4%54.1%46.3%

53.6% together, 55.5% for him apart and 49.2% for Schultz apart. Schultz was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Schultz 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

111 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 6 of them goals. His median goal came from 35 feet. 6% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 72% from beyond forty.