This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Dawson Mercer
New Jersey Devils Center
Twenty goals and thirteen assists at 22, and a shot median of nineteen feet.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-22 | NJD | 82 | 17 | 25 | 42 | -25 | 28 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 154 | 11.0 | 16:32 |
| 2022-23 | NJD | 82 | 27 | 29 | 56 | +22 | 14 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 161 | 16.8 | 16:34 |
| 2023-24 | NJD | 82 | 20 | 13 | 33 | -26 | 29 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 134 | 14.9 | 17:13 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 246 | 64 | 67 | 131 | -29 | 71 | 8 | 2 | 10 | 449 | 14.2 | 16:46 |
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
All 82 games, 20 goals and 13 assists for 33 points, 4 on the power play, 29 penalty minutes, 17:13 a night and minus-26. He took 48.2 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,139 minutes, the 39th percentile, and his ice went 39-55 against an expectation of 45.64-48.98.
Seven goals of scoring that did not arrive and six more conceded than the chances called for. A minus-26 out of a 39th-percentile chance share is both halves going wrong at once, and only one of them was his.
The Finesse Game
134 shots at a median of 19 feet with 54 per cent from inside 20, converted at 14.9 per cent against a career 14.25.
67 career assists in 246 games. Thirteen assists in eighty-two games is a very low number for a top-nine forward and it is the thing to fix — he shoots from close in, converts well, and does almost nothing else with the puck.
The Physical Game
He is 6-0 and 180 and gets to the interior without holding it long.
29 penalty minutes in 82 games is a low rate. He forechecks hard, blocks shots, and kills penalties with 2 career shorthanded goals.
The Intangibles
Eighteenth overall in 2020 out of Carbonear, three seasons, and 131 points in 246 games, all of it for one organisation. He has played all 82 games in each of his three seasons.
He is 22 and has 64 goals in 246 games. Twenty-seven goals and fifty-six points two seasons ago is the version the club is waiting to see again.
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
64.8% of his attempts in the slot, 90th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
- durable· was available
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“Thirteen assists in eighty-two games is a very low number for a top-nine forward and it is the thing to fix — he shoots from close in, converts well, and does almost nothing else with the puck.”
“He forechecks hard, blocks shots, and kills penalties with 2 career shorthanded goals.”
“He forechecks hard, blocks shots, and kills penalties with 2 career shorthanded goals.”
“He forechecks hard, blocks shots, and kills penalties with 2 career shorthanded goals.”
“Thirteen assists in eighty-two games is a very low number for a top-nine forward and it is the thing to fix — he shoots from close in, converts well, and does almost nothing else with the puck.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,139 minutes
- Expected goals
- 48.2%
- 40th pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.3%
- 50th 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: 39 for, 55 against. Expected: 45.6 and 49.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 3 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 — 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.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2023-24 · 82 games
- Top speed
- 23.1 mph
- 90th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.30 a game
- Distance
- 2.75 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 86.6 mph
- 49th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.1
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.5
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 · 1139 minutes at five-on-five
- Timo Meier35%
- Erik Haula29%
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
- NJD took 50.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 48.2% — 2.5 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second line, 1,139 minutes at five-on-five — 77th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Timo Meier | 47.2% | 48.8% | 50.0% |
| Luke Hughes | 47.6% | 48.6% | 53.5% |
| Kevin Bahl | 48.9% | 47.9% | 51.4% |
47.2% together, 48.8% for him apart and 50.0% for Meier 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
179 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 20 of them goals. His median goal came from 10 feet. 54% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 11% from beyond forty.