This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2025-26 report →
Derek Forbort
Boston Bruins Defense
Two shorthanded goals from a defenceman who took thirty-eight shots all season.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | LAK | 14 | 1 | 1 | 2 | -1 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 7.1 | 11:03 |
| 2016-17 | LAK | 82 | 2 | 16 | 18 | +8 | 54 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 100 | 2.0 | 20:07 |
| 2017-18 | LAK | 78 | 1 | 17 | 18 | +18 | 49 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 78 | 1.3 | 20:47 |
| 2018-19 | LAK | 81 | 2 | 12 | 14 | -13 | 52 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 75 | 2.7 | 20:45 |
| 2019-20 | LAK/CGY | 20 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -5 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 22 | 0.0 | 17:49 |
| 2020-21 | WPG | 56 | 2 | 10 | 12 | +1 | 35 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 67 | 3.0 | 20:45 |
| 2021-22 | BOS | 76 | 4 | 10 | 14 | +2 | 48 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 64 | 6.3 | 18:07 |
| 2022-23 | BOS | 54 | 5 | 7 | 12 | +12 | 23 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 38 | 13.2 | 17:44 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 461 | 17 | 74 | 91 | +22 | 282 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 458 | 3.7 | 19:26 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 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
5 goals and 7 assists in 54 games — 12 points at 17:44 a night, plus-12, with 2 shorthanded goals on only 38 shots, converting at 13.16 per cent, and 23 penalty minutes.
46.9 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 784 minutes, the 31st percentile — the lowest of any Boston defenceman, which on this club means third-pairing and penalty-killing rather than bad. His ice went 32-28 against an expectation of 27.88-31.53.
He missed a month with a broken finger.
The Finesse Game
Thirty-eight shots in 54 games, at a median of 51 feet, 65 per cent from beyond 40. Five goals off that is a 13 per cent conversion, which is noise on that volume rather than a shooting talent.
91 points in 461 career games. There is no puck-moving game and Boston does not ask for one — his job begins when the club does not have the puck.
The Physical Game
6-4 and 216, and this is the entire value: he kills penalties, he blocks shots, and he clears the front of the net. Boston had the best penalty kill in the league by expected goals against and he was on it.
The skating is limited — 21.5 mph at the 14th percentile and 0.3 bursts a game at the 12th — and it is survivable in a role built around standing in the right place rather than chasing.
The Intangibles
Fifteenth overall in 2010 to Los Angeles, which is a first-round pick who became a penalty killer, and there is no shame in that: 461 NHL games is a real career.
He is 31. He is the least interesting player on a very good roster and the sort the club will miss precisely when it stops having one — the shot-blocking, penalty-killing sixth defenceman is invisible until the season it is not there.
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 kills penalties, he blocks shots, and he clears the front of the net”
“he kills penalties, he blocks shots, and he clears the front of the net”
“he kills penalties, he blocks shots, and he clears the front of the net”
“There is no puck-moving game and Boston does not ask for one — his job begins when the club does not have the puck.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 784 minutes
- Expected goals
- 46.9%
- 32nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 44.8%
- 16th 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: 32 for, 28 against. Expected: 27.9 and 31.5.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 15 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 638 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 58 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, 2022-23 · 54 games
- Top speed
- 21.5 mph
- 47th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.30 a game
- Distance
- 2.33 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 86.8 mph
- 24th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.5
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.0
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
2022-23 · 784 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, 2022-23
- The club
- BOS took 53.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 46.9% — 6.6 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 784 minutes at five-on-five — 38th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connor Clifton | 46.9% | 47.0% | 53.7% |
| Charlie Coyle | 47.0% | 46.9% | 51.2% |
| Taylor Hall | 46.8% | 47.0% | 54.1% |
46.9% together, 47.0% for him apart and 53.7% for Clifton apart. Clifton 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
54 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 5 of them goals. His median goal came from 31 feet. 7% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 65% from beyond forty.