Armchair Hockey Scout Beta
82

Caleb Jones

Los Angeles Kings Defense

Twenty-five games in Colorado, a career minus-35, and a fourth club looking for a seventh defenceman.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2018-19EDM17156-96000214.819:48
2019-20EDM43459-1100013810.514:08
2020-21EDM33044-76000230.013:36
2021-22CHI5151015-318001578.816:43
2022-23CHI7341216-1940101864.719:13
2023-24COL25055+48000190.012:12
2024-25 so far
Career242144155-35881032445.716:20

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

25 games in Colorado, no goals and 5 assists, 8 penalty minutes, 12:12 a night and plus-4. He took 51.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 297 minutes, the 66th percentile, and his ice went 13-9 against an expectation of 11.81-11.00, all of it with the Avalanche.

A short season in a sheltered role that went slightly better than the chances. Twenty-five games is what a seventh defenceman gets.

The Finesse Game

19 shots without a goal at a median of 53 feet.

41 career assists in 242 games. He skates well enough to carry the puck out of trouble and that is the whole of the case for him. Fourteen goals in six seasons.

The Physical Game

He is 6-1 and 184 and does not defend with weight.

8 penalty minutes in 25 games. He is not physical, he does not block many shots, and he is easy to move from in front of his own net.

The Intangibles

A fourth-round pick in 2015 out of Arlington, Texas, six seasons across three organisations, and 55 points in 242 games. His brother Seth was fourth overall in 2013.

He is 27 and a career minus-35 across three clubs describes the ice he has been given as much as the player. This is a seventh defenceman and the club has signed him as one.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 297 minutes

Expected goals
51.8%
66th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
48.2%
37th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 13 for, 9 against. Expected: 11.8 and 11.0.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
13th
Numbers
66th

The numbers rank him 53 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 415 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 57 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 COL · 297 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, 2023-24

The club
COL took 52.3% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.8% — 0.5 below the club he did it on.
The role
297 minutes at five-on-five — 6th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Jack Johnson49.5%54.0%47.5%
Miles Wood50.1%52.3%48.1%
Ross Colton49.9%52.5%52.3%

49.5% together, 54.0% for him apart and 47.5% for Johnson apart. He was better away from Johnson, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Johnson.

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

24 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 0 of them goals. 13% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 58% from beyond forty.