This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Connor Clifton
Pittsburgh Penguins Defense
Forty-five penalty minutes in 73 games from a right-shot third-pairing defenceman signed for the edge.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | BOS | 19 | 0 | 1 | 1 | +5 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 22 | 0.0 | 17:42 |
| 2019-20 | BOS | 31 | 2 | 0 | 2 | +4 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 10.0 | 14:25 |
| 2020-21 | BOS | 44 | 1 | 6 | 7 | +10 | 38 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 48 | 2.1 | 18:13 |
| 2021-22 | BOS | 60 | 2 | 8 | 10 | -2 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 80 | 2.5 | 16:04 |
| 2022-23 | BOS | 78 | 5 | 18 | 23 | +20 | 60 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 93 | 5.4 | 17:51 |
| 2023-24 | BUF | 79 | 4 | 14 | 18 | +12 | 88 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 77 | 5.2 | 16:33 |
| 2024-25 | BUF | 73 | 1 | 15 | 16 | -6 | 45 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 63 | 1.6 | 16:03 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 384 | 15 | 62 | 77 | +43 | 290 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 403 | 3.7 | 16:43 |
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
1 goal and 15 assists in 73 games for Buffalo — 16 points at 16:03 a night, minus-6, with 45 penalty minutes.
One goal on 63 shots is a 1.6 per cent conversion, which is the lowest of any regular in this edition and is a fact about a defenceman who shoots to get the puck to the net rather than to score.
The Finesse Game
63 attempts and 1 goal. There is nothing here and there never has been: 77 points in 384 NHL games.
15 assists is a career-typical number and comes from the first pass. Under a forecheck he is quick enough to escape and the puck game is simple and mostly correct.
The Physical Game
6-0 and 196 and he plays much larger. He hits everything, he blocks shots, and he fights men considerably bigger than he is.
45 penalty minutes in 73 games, and 290 in 384 career games. He is an agitator by trade — he finishes checks late, he goes into the scrum, and he draws the response.
The Intangibles
A fifth-round pick in 2013 out of Quinnipiac who did not reach the NHL until he was 23, and 384 games later has played for three organisations.
He is 30, he went to a Stanley Cup Final with Boston in 2019, and Pittsburgh acquired him in the summer. The blue line here has been light and slow for two seasons and he is neither.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 908 minutes
- Expected goals
- 44.9%
- 14th pct
- Shot attempts
- 46.2%
- 19th 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: 43 for, 52 against. Expected: 31.5 and 38.7.
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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 68 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 with BUF · 908 minutes at five-on-five
- Jacob Bryson25%
- Bowen Byram21%
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
- BUF took 47.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 44.9% — 3.0 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 908 minutes at five-on-five — 47th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ryan McLeod | 42.9% | 45.8% | 47.6% |
| Peyton Krebs | 45.2% | 44.7% | 47.0% |
| Jacob Bryson | 37.5% | 47.4% | 47.6% |
42.9% together, 45.8% for him apart and 47.6% for McLeod apart. McLeod was better away from him while his own share held, which is a mark against him more 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
101 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 1 of them goals. His median goal came from 6 feet. 9% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 67% from beyond forty.