David Savard
Montreal Canadiens Defense
Seven hundred and ninety-five games, 431 penalty minutes, a Stanley Cup, and nine goals of finishing above expectation.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011-12 | CBJ | 31 | 2 | 8 | 10 | 0 | 16 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 34 | 5.9 | 16:34 |
| 2012-13 | CBJ | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 | 13:12 |
| 2013-14 | CBJ | 70 | 5 | 10 | 15 | +2 | 28 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 63 | 7.9 | 17:50 |
| 2014-15 | CBJ | 82 | 11 | 25 | 36 | 0 | 71 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 112 | 9.8 | 22:57 |
| 2015-16 | CBJ | 65 | 4 | 21 | 25 | -7 | 45 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 122 | 3.3 | 23:10 |
| 2016-17 | CBJ | 74 | 6 | 17 | 23 | +33 | 44 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 135 | 4.4 | 21:50 |
| 2017-18 | CBJ | 81 | 4 | 12 | 16 | +2 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 145 | 2.8 | 19:23 |
| 2018-19 | CBJ | 82 | 8 | 16 | 24 | +19 | 36 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 124 | 6.5 | 19:45 |
| 2019-20 | CBJ | 68 | 0 | 11 | 11 | -3 | 35 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 97 | 0.0 | 20:41 |
| 2020-21 | CBJ/TBL | 54 | 1 | 5 | 6 | -27 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 69 | 1.5 | 19:50 |
| 2021-22 | MTL | 62 | 3 | 14 | 17 | -22 | 36 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 66 | 4.5 | 20:47 |
| 2022-23 | MTL | 62 | 3 | 17 | 20 | -14 | 40 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 63 | 4.8 | 22:23 |
| 2023-24 | MTL | 60 | 6 | 18 | 24 | -1 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 54 | 11.1 | 20:14 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 795 | 53 | 174 | 227 | -21 | 431 | 6 | 0 | 7 | 1085 | 4.9 | 20:36 |
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
60 games, 6 goals and 18 assists for 24 points, 24 penalty minutes, 20:14 a night and minus-1. He took 45.1 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 995 minutes, the 22nd percentile, and his ice went 50-52 against an expectation of 41.34-50.28.
Nine goals of finishing above what the chances were worth — the largest of any defenceman on the roster — and two more conceded than they called for. A minus-1 out of the 22nd percentile of chances is a season that went considerably better than it should have.
The Finesse Game
73 attempts at a median of 54 feet with 73 per cent from beyond 40, converted at 11.1 per cent against a career 4.88.
174 career assists in 795 games. Six goals on fifty-four shots is more than double his career rate and it is the reason his ice outscored its chances. There is no puck-moving here; he gets it off the wall and out and does not carry it.
The Physical Game
He is 6-1 and 235 and hits as hard as anybody on this roster.
431 career penalty minutes in 795 games is a moderate rate for a man who plays this way. He clears the crease, blocks shots, kills penalties, and cannot be moved from in front of his own net.
The Intangibles
A fourth-round pick in 2009 out of St-Hyacinthe, thirteen seasons across three organisations, and 227 points in 795 games. He won the Stanley Cup with Tampa Bay in 2021.
He is 33 and took 20:14 a night on the second-youngest roster in this edition. Whatever this club is building, part of the job is teaching Guhle, Struble, Barron and Xhekaj how to do that, and this is who is doing it.
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.
- 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.
“He is 6-1 and 235 and hits as hard as anybody on this roster.”
“He clears the crease, blocks shots, kills penalties, and cannot be moved from in front of his own net.”
“He clears the crease, blocks shots, kills penalties, and cannot be moved from in front of his own net.”
“He clears the crease, blocks shots, kills penalties, and cannot be moved from in front of his own net.”
“He clears the crease, blocks shots, kills penalties, and cannot be moved from in front of his own net.”
“There is no puck-moving here; he gets it off the wall and out and does not carry it.”
“Whatever this club is building, part of the job is teaching Guhle, Struble, Barron and Xhekaj how to do that, and this is who is doing it.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 995 minutes
- Expected goals
- 45.1%
- 22nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 42.8%
- 7th 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: 50 for, 52 against. Expected: 41.3 and 50.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 5 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 — 64 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 · 60 games
- Top speed
- 20.9 mph
- 16th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.12 a game
- Distance
- 2.61 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 91.1 mph
- 45th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.7
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.2
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 · 995 minutes at five-on-five
- Arber Xhekaj26%
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
- MTL took 46.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 45.1% — 1.0 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 995 minutes at five-on-five — 57th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mike Matheson | 44.8% | 45.4% | 44.3% |
| Jake Evans | 38.6% | 48.2% | 48.6% |
| Nick Suzuki | 49.1% | 43.1% | 50.2% |
44.8% together, 45.4% for him apart and 44.3% for Matheson 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
73 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 5 of them goals. His median goal came from 34 feet. 7% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 73% from beyond forty.