Armchair Hockey Scout Beta
8

Chris Tanev

Toronto Maple Leafs Defense

Undrafted, plus-31, and the 85th percentile of chances at 35 on 43 shot attempts all season.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2010-11VAN2901100000150.013:47
2011-12VAN25022+102000150.016:43
2012-13VAN38257+4100012010.017:17
2013-14VAN6461117+128012659.220:44
2014-15VAN7021820+812001533.821:05
2015-16VAN6941418-88200429.521:45
2016-17VAN532810+314001395.120:21
2017-18VAN422911+78000316.519:47
2018-19VAN5521012+318000513.920:10
2019-20VAN6921820+441001454.419:32
2020-21CGY5621012+156000663.021:44
2021-22CGY8262228+3522003886.820:28
2022-23CGY6511213+721001751.320:07
2023-24CGY/DAL7521719+2224000563.619:41
2024-25TOR7531518+3124000437.019:45
2025-26 so far
Career86736172208+15321821107045.119:58

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

3 goals and 15 assists in 75 games — 18 points at 19:45 a night, plus-31, the best figure on the club, with 24 penalty minutes on 43 shot attempts.

53.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 85th percentile — the best mark of any defenceman on the roster. His ice went 58-43 against an expectation of 46.50-40.00 — twelve goals better than expected for and three worse against.

The Finesse Game

43 attempts in 75 games is the lowest volume of any regular defenceman in this edition, at a median of 55 feet with 72 per cent from beyond 40. He does not shoot and he has not for fifteen years: 36 goals in 867 games.

15 assists. The first pass is short, quick and correct, and under a heavy forecheck he goes off the wall rather than attempting anything. The whole puck game is designed to lose nothing.

The Physical Game

6-3 and 200 and he blocks shots at a rate among the highest in the league and has done for fifteen seasons. He clears the front of his own net, he defends the rush by standing men up at the blue line, and he does it without leaving his feet.

24 penalty minutes in 75 games at twenty minutes a night is a very low rate. He is essentially never beaten badly enough to reach.

The Intangibles

Undrafted, and he did not play organised hockey above the junior B level until he was 19 — 867 games and 208 points, and a body that has been broken repeatedly and reassembled every time.

He is 36 and playing in his hometown. The reputation for blocking shots with parts of the body nobody should is entirely earned.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,171 minutes

Expected goals
53.8%
85th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
48.4%
36th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 58 for, 43 against. Expected: 46.5 and 40.0.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
55th
Numbers
85th

The numbers rank him 30 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 — 73 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

2024-25 · 1171 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
TOR took 50.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 53.8% — 3.6 above the club he did it on.
The role
Second pair, 1,171 minutes at five-on-five — 82nd percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Jake McCabe54.2%53.2%51.0%
Mitchell Marner53.1%54.2%54.5%
Matthew Knies55.9%52.7%51.3%

54.2% together, 53.2% for him apart and 51.0% for McCabe apart. McCabe was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for McCabe 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

61 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 3 of them goals. His median goal came from 32 feet. 7% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 72% from beyond forty.