Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2025-26 report →

27

Derek Forbort

Vancouver Canucks Defense

Four hundred and ninety-six games and no power-play goals at all.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2015-16LAK14112-117000147.111:03
2016-17LAK8221618+8540001002.020:07
2017-18LAK7811718+1849000781.320:47
2018-19LAK8121214-1352001752.720:45
2019-20LAK/CGY20011-54000220.017:49
2020-21WPG5621012+135000673.020:45
2021-22BOS7641014+248001646.318:07
2022-23BOS545712+12230223813.217:44
2023-24BOS35044+817000220.017:48
2024-25 so far
Career496177895+302990244803.519:19

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

35 games with Boston, no goals and 4 assists, 17 penalty minutes, 17:48 a night and plus-8. He took 53.2 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 507 minutes, the 77th percentile, and his ice went 23-17 against an expectation of 20.90-18.35.

Two goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and a goal of goaltending above them. Thirty-five games is the fewest he has played since 2019-20.

The Finesse Game

47 attempts at a median of 54 feet with 72 per cent of them from beyond forty and 4 per cent from inside twenty, 20 of those on goal, converted at nothing at all against a career 3.54 across 480 shots.

Seventeen career goals and no power-play goals at all in 496 games. Twenty of 47 attempts reached the goaltender, which is a man shooting into shins from the point rather than around them; the offensive part of this game does not exist.

The Physical Game

He is 6-4 and 216 and took 17 penalty minutes.

299 career penalty minutes in 496 games. He is large and left-handed and kills penalties by taking away the pass to the far side with his reach and the front of the net with his weight; nine seasons of it have cost him three penalty minutes every five games.

The Intangibles

Fifteenth overall in 2010 by Los Angeles, nine seasons, and Vancouver will be his fifth organisation.

A career plus-30 and 2 shorthanded goals in 496 games. He was a first-round pick who did not reach the league until he was 23, and he has been a penalty-killing defenceman on four clubs since.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 507 minutes

Expected goals
53.2%
77th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
45.3%
18th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 23 for, 17 against. Expected: 20.9 and 18.4.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
62nd
Numbers
77th

The 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 72 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.

Usual linemates

2023-24 with BOS · 507 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
BOS took 49.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 53.2% — 3.5 above the club he did it on.
The role
Third pair, 507 minutes at five-on-five — 18th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Kevin Shattenkirk49.1%55.7%54.9%
Trent Frederic53.9%53.0%49.5%
Morgan Geekie54.7%52.6%49.9%

49.1% together, 55.7% for him apart and 54.9% for Shattenkirk apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.

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

47 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 0 of them goals. 4% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 72% from beyond forty.