This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Damon Severson

Two hundred and twenty-four career assists from the blue line, and a career minus-130.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2014-15	NJD	51	5	12	17	-13	22	0	0	0	93	5.4	21:58
2015-16	NJD	72	1	20	21	-8	32	0	0	0	94	1.1	18:10
2016-17	NJD	80	3	28	31	-31	58	0	0	1	125	2.4	20:21
2017-18	NJD	76	9	15	24	-8	42	0	0	2	121	7.4	19:41
2018-19	NJD	82	11	28	39	-27	58	3	0	0	146	7.5	22:03
2019-20	NJD	69	8	23	31	-20	52	3	0	2	114	7.0	22:58
2020-21	NJD	56	3	18	21	-8	29	0	0	0	91	3.3	22:29
2021-22	NJD	80	11	35	46	-14	57	5	0	0	158	7.0	23:36
2022-23	NJD	81	7	26	33	+9	38	1	1	2	102	6.9	19:57
2023-24	CBJ	67	9	19	28	-10	51	0	0	1	88	10.2	21:09
2024-25 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	714	67	224	291	-130	439	12	1	8	1132	5.9	21:11

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

9 goals and 19 assists in 67 games — 28 points at 21:09 a night, minus-10, with 1 game-winner on 88 shots, converting at 10.23 per cent, and 51 penalty minutes.

48.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,222 minutes, the 41st percentile — the best mark of any defenceman on this roster. His ice went 54-69 against an expectation of 53.09-56.69 — eight fewer goals conceded than the chances predicted.

The Finesse Game

88 attempts at a median of 43 feet, with 53 per cent from beyond 40 and 11 per cent from inside 20, converting at 10.23 per cent — an unusually high rate for a defenceman and the reason for nine goals.

He carries the puck out of his own zone rather than passing it out, and 224 career assists in 714 games is a genuine offensive record. He will attempt the pass through the middle that a safer defenceman does not.

The turnovers are the cost and they are a real one.

The Physical Game

6-2 and 204. He does not clear his crease by force and he loses battles below the goal line, and the defending is done with position and stick.

51 penalty minutes in 67 games and 439 in 714 for his career is a moderate rate, and a share of it is the stick foul that follows losing a step.

The Intangibles

Sixtieth overall in 2012 by New Jersey, and 714 games and 291 points at 30 with a career minus-130 — one of the worst figures in this edition, accumulated almost entirely on clubs that finished near the bottom.

He signed an eight-year contract here in 2023. A puck-moving defenceman with 224 assists and a minus-130 is the same player described twice, and on a club that was 31st at suppressing chances the second description matters more.

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.

slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
17.2% of his attempts in the slot, 91st percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
hard-shot· beats a goaltender from range
4 of 68 attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 5.9%, 97th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.21) · 16% keep it
transitiona strength· carries it out; gains the line under control
“**He carries the puck out of his own zone rather than passing it out**, and **224 career assists in 714 games** is a genuine offensive record.”
playmakera strength· passes up the shot a scorer takes
“**He carries the puck out of his own zone rather than passing it out**, and **224 career assists in 714 games** is a genuine offensive record.”
clears-the-creasehe lacks it· moves grown men off the front of his net
“**He does not clear his crease by force and he loses battles below the goal line**, and the defending is done with position and stick.”
wins-the-wallhe lacks it· the corners and below the goal line
“**He does not clear his crease by force and he loses battles below the goal line**, and the defending is done with position and stick.”
fouls-when-beatena strength· the stick foul that follows losing a step
“51 penalty minutes in 67 games and 439 in 714 for his career is a moderate rate, and a share of it is **the stick foul that follows losing a step.**”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,222 minutes

Expected goals: 48.4%; 41st pct
Shot attempts: 50.8%; 61st pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 54 for, 69 against. Expected: 53.1 and 56.7.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

31st

Numbers

41st

The two rank him within 10 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 65 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, 2023-24 · 67 games

Top speed: 21.9 mph; 60th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.66 a game
Distance: 2.85 miles a game
Hardest shot: 97.5 mph; 84th pct

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

2023-24 · 1222 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: CBJ took 45.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 48.4% — 2.5 above the club he did it on.
The role: First pair, 1,222 minutes at five-on-five — 85th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Zach Werenski	48.1%	48.5%	48.1%
Ivan Provorov	50.3%	47.1%	42.9%
Johnny Gaudreau	51.7%	46.7%	48.8%

48.1% together, 48.5% for him apart and 48.1% for Werenski apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.

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

128 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 10 of them goals. His median goal came from 38 feet. 11% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 53% from beyond forty.