This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Devon Toews
Colorado Avalanche Defense
One hundred and nine shots from beyond forty feet and two goals, next to a partner who scored seven on 104.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | NYI | 48 | 5 | 13 | 18 | +7 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 81 | 6.2 | 17:54 |
| 2019-20 | NYI | 68 | 6 | 22 | 28 | +1 | 16 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 122 | 4.9 | 20:31 |
| 2020-21 | COL | 53 | 9 | 22 | 31 | +29 | 16 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 121 | 7.4 | 24:46 |
| 2021-22 | COL | 66 | 13 | 44 | 57 | +52 | 20 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 158 | 8.2 | 25:22 |
| 2022-23 | COL | 80 | 7 | 43 | 50 | +39 | 26 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 165 | 4.2 | 25:06 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 315 | 40 | 144 | 184 | +128 | 82 | 7 | 0 | 8 | 647 | 6.2 | 23:01 |
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
7 goals and 43 assists in 80 games, plus-39 — sixth-best in the league — at 25:06 a night, second only to Makar on the club.
56.7 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,551 minutes, the 92nd percentile, and his ice went 79-54 against an expectation of 73.61-56.14. Every layer of that is good, and the plus-39 is the least informative of them.
At 29 he has now played three full seasons in Colorado and been above the 90th percentile in expected-goal share in each. A fourth-round pick in 2014 who has been among the best possession defencemen in the league for three straight years, and is named in that conversation far less often than the numbers warrant.
The Finesse Game
165 shots at a median of 50 feet, 68 per cent from beyond forty, 14 per cent from inside twenty. That is a pure point shooter’s distribution and the return is what a point shooter’s distribution usually earns.
From beyond forty feet: 109 shots on goal, two goals, 1.83 per cent — a shade over half the league rate for a defenceman. From inside forty: 51 shots, five goals.
The contrast with the man beside him is the most useful number in this chapter. Same club, same power play, near-identical volume from the same places, and Makar scored seven where Toews scored two. The difference is not effort or opportunity, and it is worth saying plainly that this book cannot see what it is.
The 43 assists are the real output, and 144 in 315 career games says the outlet pass is the skill.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 191. 3.46 miles a game at the 97th percentile against a top speed of 22.6 mph at the 68th — high mileage, ordinary speed, which is what a first-pair defenceman’s tracking line normally looks like and should not be read as a verdict.
26 penalty minutes in 80 games at twenty-five minutes a night is a very low number for that workload. He defends with position and with his stick, and he is almost never caught having to foul.
The Intangibles
108th overall in 2014 and four years in the Islanders’ system before Colorado traded for him in the autumn of 2020. He was 26 and had never played 70 games in a season.
He plays the hard side of the top pair and takes the matchup that lets Makar attack. That is the job, he has done it for three years, and the possession numbers say it has worked every time.
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
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.
- durable· was available
80 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
56.7% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 49.7% for his club in the minutes he sat: +7.0, 98th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
- workhorse· carries the load at even strength
19:23 a game at five-on-five, 95th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
“He plays the hard side of the top pair and takes the matchup that lets Makar attack.”
“The 43 assists are the real output, and 144 in 315 career games says the outlet pass is the skill.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 1,551 minutes
- Expected goals
- 56.7%
- 93rd pct
- Shot attempts
- 54.7%
- 89th 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: 79 for, 54 against. Expected: 73.6 and 56.1.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 23 points above where the report does. 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. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
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 — 70 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 · 80 games
- Top speed
- 22.6 mph
- 87th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.51 a game
- Distance
- 3.46 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 94.1 mph
- 63rd 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 · 1551 minutes at five-on-five
- Cale Makar49%
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
- COL took 52.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 56.7% — 4.2 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,551 minutes at five-on-five — 99th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mikko Rantanen | 56.4% | 57.1% | 49.1% |
| Cale Makar | 58.5% | 55.0% | 55.2% |
| Nathan MacKinnon | 55.2% | 58.4% | 54.5% |
56.4% together, 57.1% for him apart and 49.1% for Rantanen apart. Rantanen was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Rantanen 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
209 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 7 of them goals. His median goal came from 24 feet. 14% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 68% from beyond forty.