Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

7

Dougie Hamilton

New Jersey Devils Defense

40 points in 64 games and 186 shots, and a third consecutive season interrupted.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2012-13BOS4251116+414200836.017:08
2013-14BOS6471825+22402011146.119:06
2014-15BOS72103242-3415021885.321:20
2015-16CGY82123143-14465031906.319:46
2016-17CGY81133750+12642052225.919:41
2017-18CGY82172744+1646042706.321:32
2018-19CAR821821390542022597.019:40
2019-20CAR47142640+30322031708.223:17
2020-21CAR55103242+20352121805.622:43
2021-22NJD6292130-19342011974.621:13
2022-23NJD82225274+23508072758.021:46
2023-24NJD2051116-820400618.220:59
2024-25NJD6493140+8305031864.819:51
2025-26 so far
Career835151350501+765244713323956.320:36

This Season So Far

The 2025-26 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

9 goals and 31 assists in 64 games for 40 points, plus-8, on 19:51 a night and 186 shots.

51.2 per cent at five-on-five, the 64th percentile, with on-ice goals of 37-27 against an expected 44.2-42.1. 64 games, after 20 the season before.

The Finesse Game

The point shot is among the best in the league — heavy, quick from a set position, and 186 attempts in 64 games is an enormous volume that makes the power play work.

31 assists in 64 games is a first-pair rate and the first pass is genuinely good. He is one of the better offensive defencemen of his generation and it has never been in doubt.

The Physical Game

6-6 and 230, and he does not use it. He does not clear a crease decisively, does not win board battles by force, and defends with reach rather than with weight.

30 penalty minutes over 64 games. The body is the issue — a torn pectoral, a broken jaw, and 84 games across two seasons.

The Intangibles

A first-round pick, five organisations, a long contract, and a decade of producing points and criticism in equal measure.

At 32 the projection is 60 games and 45 points. New Jersey’s power play was 1st in the league and he is a large part of the reason; the club has had to run it without him for a third of two seasons.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,011 minutes

Expected goals
51.2%
64th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
52.5%
78th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 37 for, 27 against. Expected: 44.2 and 42.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
58th
Numbers
64th

The two rank him within 6 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 357 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 74 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

2024-25 · 1011 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, 2024-25

The club
NJD took 50.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.2% — 0.5 above the club he did it on.
The role
Third pair, 1,011 minutes at five-on-five — 63rd percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Brenden Dillon52.1%48.7%45.2%
Jack Hughes54.0%49.2%58.1%
Jesper Bratt53.0%50.3%51.7%

52.1% together, 48.7% for him apart and 45.2% for Dillon 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

273 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 10 of them goals. His median goal came from 37 feet. 4% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 67% from beyond forty.