Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

9

Dmitry Orlov

Carolina Hurricanes Defense

Fifty-nine per cent of the expected goals — the ninety-eighth percentile — and the only defenceman here who clears a crease by force.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2011-12WSH6031619+118001515.916:52
2012-13WSH5011+5000010.014:57
2013-14WSH543811-119000595.119:36
2015-16WSH8282129+826003908.916:02
2016-17WSH8262733+30511001254.819:32
2017-18WSH82102131+10220021258.023:08
2018-19WSH8232629+3330001013.021:38
2019-20WSH6942327+5361021053.822:10
2020-21WSH5181422+1620002839.619:49
2021-22WSH76122335+25442041279.420:58
2022-23WSH/BOS6672936+12221021245.722:33
2023-24CAR8262026+4360111294.717:19
2024-25 so far
Career79170229299+118327511711206.319:57

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

6 goals and 20 assists in all 82 games — 26 points at 17:19 a night, plus-4, with 1 shorthanded goal on 129 shots, and 36 penalty minutes.

59.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,310 minutes, the 98th percentile. His ice went 56-41 against an expectation of 61.81-43.00 — six goals of scoring missing and two fewer conceded than the chances predicted.

The Finesse Game

129 attempts at a median of 45 feet, with 63 per cent from beyond 40 and 10 per cent from inside 20, converting at 4.65 per cent. Seventy goals in 791 career games.

20 assists and 229 for his career. The first pass is early and he will carry the puck out when it is not there, and the skating is better than a 5-11 and 215-pound defenceman in his twelfth season has any right to.

The Physical Game

5-11 and 215, and he clears the front of his own net by force — which on this blue line is scarce, and on a club whose top pair defends entirely with position it is the reason he is here.

He finishes checks and he wins battles below the goal line against men taller than he is. 36 penalty minutes in 82 games and 327 in 791 for his career is a moderate rate for a defenceman who plays this way.

The Intangibles

Fifty-fifth overall in 2009 by Washington, a Stanley Cup in 2018, and 791 games and 299 points at 33 with a career plus-118.

He is the second-oldest defenceman on the roster and the only one who plays a heavy game. On a blue line that has just lost Brett Pesce and Brady Skjei, the man who clears the crease matters more this year than he did last.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,310 minutes

Expected goals
59%
98th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
60.2%
99th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 56 for, 41 against. Expected: 61.8 and 43.0.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
87th
Numbers
98th

The two rank him within 11 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 201 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 73 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 · 1310 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
CAR took 56.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 59.0% — 2.4 above the club he did it on.
The role
Third pair, 1,310 minutes at five-on-five — 90th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Jalen Chatfield61.6%54.3%55.4%
Martin Necas53.5%62.1%54.8%
Jesperi Kotkaniemi59.6%58.7%56.9%

61.6% together, 54.3% for him apart and 55.4% for Chatfield apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.

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

192 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 6 of them goals. His median goal came from 46 feet. 10% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 63% from beyond forty.