This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Cam Fowler
Anaheim Ducks Defense
Twelve seasons and 811 games in one uniform, and with Lindholm and Manson sold in March he is now most of what Anaheim has on a blue line.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010-11 | ANA | 76 | 10 | 30 | 40 | -25 | 20 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 123 | 8.1 | 22:08 |
| 2011-12 | ANA | 82 | 5 | 24 | 29 | -28 | 18 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 123 | 4.1 | 23:16 |
| 2012-13 | ANA | 37 | 1 | 10 | 11 | -4 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 50 | 2.0 | 20:26 |
| 2013-14 | ANA | 70 | 6 | 30 | 36 | +15 | 14 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 100 | 6.0 | 23:52 |
| 2014-15 | ANA | 80 | 7 | 27 | 34 | +4 | 14 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 87 | 8.1 | 21:09 |
| 2015-16 | ANA | 69 | 5 | 23 | 28 | -8 | 27 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 113 | 4.4 | 22:47 |
| 2016-17 | ANA | 80 | 11 | 28 | 39 | +7 | 20 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 186 | 5.9 | 24:51 |
| 2017-18 | ANA | 67 | 8 | 24 | 32 | +3 | 28 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 122 | 6.6 | 24:51 |
| 2018-19 | ANA | 59 | 5 | 18 | 23 | -14 | 20 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 88 | 5.7 | 23:22 |
| 2019-20 | ANA | 59 | 9 | 20 | 29 | 0 | 20 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 117 | 7.7 | 21:59 |
| 2020-21 | ANA | 56 | 5 | 18 | 23 | -4 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 75 | 6.7 | 21:46 |
| 2021-22 | ANA | 76 | 9 | 33 | 42 | -9 | 14 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 124 | 7.3 | 24:25 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 811 | 81 | 285 | 366 | -63 | 217 | 32 | 4 | 17 | 1308 | 6.2 | 23:02 |
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
9 goals and 33 assists in 76 games — 42 points at 24:25 a night, minus-9, with 6 power-play goals on 124 shots and 14 penalty minutes.
24:25 is the 92nd percentile among the league’s defencemen and 2:51 of it was shorthanded, the 93rd. Anaheim asked him to play every situation and he played them.
50.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,420 minutes, the 54th percentile. His ice went 61-57 against an expectation of 59.84-58.88 — a goal of finishing ahead of the chances and two fewer conceded than they predicted. On a club that finished 23rd in the league, that is the closest thing on the roster to a neutral result.
It came with Josh Manson. The pair took 52.8 per cent of the expected goals across 1,163 attempts together, and apart from Manson his share falls to 48.5. Manson was sold to Colorado in March and Hampus Lindholm to Boston in the same week. What is left of the pairing is the 30-year-old.
The Finesse Game
124 attempts at a median of 47 feet, 64 per cent of them from beyond 40 and 10 per cent from inside 20, converting at 7.26 per cent — the 85th percentile for a defenceman, which is a good return on a shot nobody is frightened of.
43 per cent of his points came on the power play, the 94th percentile. He runs it from the blue line and he holds the puck until a forechecker commits. The outlet pass is the skill and it always has been: 285 career assists against 81 goals is the record of a man who moves the puck rather than shoots it.
The Physical Game
6-2 and 213, and 1.20 hits per 60 is the 3rd percentile among the league defencemen, and he has never been the man who clears his own crease. 217 penalty minutes in twelve seasons says the same thing from the other side — 0.23 penalties taken per 60 is the 5th percentile, and a defenceman who never fouls is usually a defenceman who never engages.
The legs are still the asset at 30. 3.60 miles a game — 8.84 per sixty minutes of ice, the 90th percentile among defencemen — while topping out at 21.5 mph, the 28th. He is not fast. He simply never stops, and on this roster nobody else can absorb what that buys.
The Intangibles
Twelfth overall in 2010, and 811 games without ever having played for another club. Ryan Getzlaf has retired, Lindholm and Manson were sold, and Fowler is the last man here from the team that went to a Game 7 of a conference final.
He turns 31 in December, with 366 career points and a contract that runs to 2026. The question is not whether he is a top-pair defenceman — he is — but whether a club three years from contending should be spending 24 minutes a night of him to find out.
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
- 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.
- hard-shot· beats a goaltender from range
6 of 107 attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 5.6%, 97th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.21) · 16% keep it
- disciplined· stays out of the box
0.18 penalty minutes a game over 76, 9th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.75) · 35% keep it
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
50.4% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 46.8% for his club in the minutes he sat: +3.6, 91st percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
“The outlet pass is the skill and it always has been”
“1.20 hits per 60 is the 3rd percentile among the league defencemen, and he has never been the man who clears his own crease”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,420 minutes
- Expected goals
- 50.4%
- 59th pct
- Shot attempts
- 50.8%
- 63rd 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: 61 for, 57 against. Expected: 59.8 and 58.9.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 11 points of one another. 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.
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 — 60 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 · 76 games
- Top speed
- 21.5 mph
- 47th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.75 a game
- Distance
- 3.60 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 94.8 mph
- 68th 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 · 1420 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, 2021-22
- The club
- ANA took 48.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.4% — 2.4 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 1,420 minutes at five-on-five — 95th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Josh Manson | 52.8% | 48.5% | 44.3% |
| Troy Terry | 53.8% | 48.7% | 49.8% |
| Adam Henrique | 51.9% | 49.9% | 52.1% |
52.8% together, 48.5% for him apart and 44.3% for Manson apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
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
167 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 9 of them goals. His median goal came from 44 feet. 10% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 64% from beyond forty.