This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Devon Toews
Colorado Avalanche Defense
Plus-156 in 397 games — the best career rate of anybody in this edition — from a fourth-round pick nobody wanted.
| 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 | COL | 82 | 12 | 38 | 50 | +28 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 159 | 7.5 | 23:26 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 397 | 52 | 182 | 234 | +156 | 100 | 7 | 0 | 10 | 806 | 6.5 | 23:06 |
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, 12 goals and 38 assists, 23:26 a night and plus-28. He took 54.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,528 minutes — more than anybody on the club — the 85th percentile, and his ice went 79-61 against an expectation of 67.59-55.76.
The goals and the chances agree almost exactly in both directions, which on a club whose stars were fourteen and fifteen goals under expectation is worth saying out loud. He is plus-156 across 397 career games, the highest rate of anybody in this edition with two hundred and fifty games.
The Finesse Game
He moves the puck out on the first pass rather than on a carry, and the pass is chosen before he has the puck. One hundred and eighty-two assists in 397 games is a first-pair playmaking rate and almost none of it is spectacular.
One hundred and fifty-nine shots at a median of 53 feet with 75 per cent from beyond 40, and 12 went in. He gets the puck through traffic rather than around it, which is the whole skill of a point shot.
The Physical Game
He defends the rush with a stick that arrives early, and 18 penalty minutes in 82 games at 23:26 a night is among the lowest rates of any defenceman playing those minutes in this edition. He is never late, so he never has to hold.
At 6-1 and 191 he is not a punishing defenceman and does not clear his crease by force. The pair works because Josh Manson does that on the other one.
The Intangibles
A fourth-round pick, 108th overall in 2014, who spent three years at Quinnipiac and two more in the American league before New York gave him 48 games at 25. Colorado bought him for two second-round picks and he has been the most underrated defenceman in hockey ever since.
He turned 30 and played all 82 games at the hardest minutes on a fifty-win club. There is no part of his game that depends on being young.
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.
- disciplined· stays out of the box
0.22 penalty minutes a game over 82, 9th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.75) · 35% keep it
- durable· was available
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
- sheltered· is started in the attacking end
61% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 95th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
“He moves the puck out on the first pass rather than on a carry, and the pass is chosen before he has the puck.”
“He defends the rush with a stick that arrives early, and 18 penalty minutes in 82 games at 23:26 a night is among the lowest rates of any defenceman playing those minutes in this edition.”
“At 6-1 and 191 he is not a punishing defenceman and does not clear his crease by force.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,528 minutes
- Expected goals
- 54.8%
- 86th pct
- Shot attempts
- 53.8%
- 84th 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, 61 against. Expected: 67.6 and 55.8.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 43 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 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
- 22.8 mph
- 89th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.15 a game
- Distance
- 3.28 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 97.4 mph
- 83rd 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 · 1528 minutes at five-on-five
- Cale Makar69%
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
- COL took 52.3% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 54.8% — 2.5 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,528 minutes at five-on-five — 98th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cale Makar | 55.2% | 54.0% | 52.3% |
| Nathan MacKinnon | 58.4% | 48.2% | 57.5% |
| Mikko Rantanen | 57.2% | 51.1% | 53.4% |
55.2% together, 54.0% for him apart and 52.3% for Makar 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
216 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 12 of them goals. His median goal came from 37 feet. 9% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 75% from beyond forty.