Conor Garland

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

77 games, 19 goals and 33 assists at 16:24 a night, plus-18, thirty-six penalty minutes, 203 shots. One of the nineteen came on the power play. Hundred-and-twenty-third overall in 2015 by Arizona — the fifth round — four seasons, 241 games, 148 points.

The Finesse Game

Fifty-two points and one of them a power-play goal. 2.58 even-strength points per 60 is the 84th percentile among the 393 forwards who played forty games, and only six per cent of his points came on the power play, the 26th percentile, off 1:36 a night.

Almost all of this is five-on-five production, which is the most transferable kind there is.

9.64 shots per 60 is the 85th percentile at 9.4 per cent, from a 23-foot median with fifty-two per cent from the slot. Two hundred and three attempts off sixteen minutes a night at 5-10 and 165 pounds.

54.4 per cent of the expected goals is the 80th percentile and 53.0 per cent of the attempts the 75th, out of 50.4 per cent offensive-zone starts, the 321st-lowest of the 652 skaters who took two hundred end-zone starts — as close to an even chair as the pool contains, and the best pair of possession shares of any forward who spent the season in Vancouver.

2.37 takeaways per 60 is the 91st percentile.

The Physical Game

5-10 and 165 pounds — the lightest forward on this roster — and 2.47 hits per 60 at the 27th percentile.

1.57 penalties drawn per 60 is the 93rd percentile against 0.66 taken at the 53rd, and thirty-six penalty minutes came out of seventy-seven games.

The Intangibles

22.8 mph is the 75th percentile and 9.80 miles per 60 the 62nd, against 3.9 bursts over twenty miles an hour per 60 at the 34th.

A good top end reached rarely, and an ordinary amount of ground covered. The tracking does not support a reputation for relentlessness, and at 165 pounds it is the takeaway rate and the calls he draws that make the case instead.

His shot is 86.6 mph, the 25th percentile.

He is 26, with 148 points in 241 games across four seasons, and the fifty-two is a career high by thirteen. Fifty-two points on ninety-six seconds of power play, a level chair, a 91st-percentile takeaway rate and the 93rd-percentile penalties drawn are four things a club can price. A soft shot, a 34th-percentile sprint count and 165 pounds are what a seven-game series asks about, and the record does not answer any of them.