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

Drew Doughty

Twenty-five forty-eight a night at 34, second in the edition, and 1,177 games without missing much.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2008-09	LAK	81	6	21	27	-17	56	3	0	1	126	4.8	23:50
2009-10	LAK	82	16	43	59	+20	54	9	0	5	142	11.3	24:59
2010-11	LAK	76	11	29	40	+13	68	5	0	3	139	7.9	25:39
2011-12	LAK	77	10	26	36	-2	69	3	0	3	168	5.9	24:54
2012-13	LAK	48	6	16	22	+4	36	3	0	0	114	5.3	26:24
2013-14	LAK	78	10	27	37	+17	64	6	0	2	177	5.7	25:43
2014-15	LAK	82	7	39	46	+3	56	1	0	2	219	3.2	29:00
2015-16	LAK	82	14	37	51	+24	52	9	1	3	197	7.1	28:01
2016-17	LAK	82	12	32	44	+8	46	5	0	1	181	6.6	27:09
2017-18	LAK	82	10	50	60	+23	54	3	1	4	205	4.9	26:50
2018-19	LAK	82	8	37	45	-34	44	7	0	1	154	5.2	26:36
2019-20	LAK	67	7	28	35	-16	36	5	0	2	141	5.0	25:49
2020-21	LAK	56	8	26	34	-14	26	6	0	0	101	7.9	26:23
2021-22	LAK	39	7	24	31	+4	30	4	0	1	99	7.1	25:44
2022-23	LAK	81	9	43	52	+12	34	4	0	2	145	6.2	26:14
2023-24	LAK	82	15	35	50	+15	44	7	0	3	135	11.1	25:48
2024-25 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	1177	156	513	669	+60	769	80	2	33	2443	6.4	26:13

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, 15 goals and 35 assists for 50 points, 7 on the power play, 44 penalty minutes, 25:48 a night and plus-15. He took 55.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,598 minutes, the 87th percentile, and his ice went 60-44 against an expectation of 67.89-55.51.

Eight goals of scoring that did not arrive on his ice and eleven fewer conceded than the chances called for. The 25:48 is second in this edition behind John Carlson’s 25:54 and the 1,598 five-on-five minutes are fifth.

The Finesse Game

135 shots at a median of 51 feet with 74 per cent from beyond 40, converted at 11.1 per cent against a career 6.4.

513 career assists in 1,177 games. Fifteen goals at that shot profile is a season that will not repeat and the assists are the real number. He walks the line, holds it under pressure, and makes the first pass out of trouble as well as anybody of his age in the league.

The Physical Game

He is 6-1 and 210 and defends with position and stick rather than weight.

769 career penalty minutes in 1,177 games is a moderate rate for a defenceman who has played this many hard minutes. He blocks shots, kills penalties and clears the front of his net, and he will say something about it afterwards.

The Intangibles

Second overall in 2008 out of London, Ontario, sixteen seasons, 1,177 games and two Stanley Cups, all of it for one organisation. He has a Norris Trophy and an Olympic gold medal.

He is 34 and plays more than all but one man in this edition. Everything about the profile says the fall is coming and nothing in last season’s numbers says it has started.

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.

hard-shot· beats a goaltender from range
12 of 137 attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 8.8%, 100th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.21) · 16% keep it
clutch· scored his goals when the game was still live
5 of his 15 goals late or in overtime, 94th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure barely repeats (0.06) · 10% keep it
durable· was available
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
workhorse· carries the load at even strength
19:29 a game at five-on-five, 97th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
shot-blockera strength· gets in front of it
“He blocks shots, kills penalties and clears the front of his net, and he will say something about it afterwards.”
penalty-killera strength· trusted a man short
“He blocks shots, kills penalties and clears the front of his net, and he will say something about it afterwards.”
clears-the-creasea strength· moves grown men off the front of his net
“He blocks shots, kills penalties and clears the front of his net, and he will say something about it afterwards.”
agitatora strength· gets under the skin; draws the retaliation
“He blocks shots, kills penalties and clears the front of his net, and he will say something about it afterwards.”
transitiona strength· carries it out; gains the line under control
“He walks the line, holds it under pressure, and makes the first pass out of trouble as well as anybody of his age in the league.”
defends-with-reacha strength· takes the puck before the contact happens
“He is 6-1 and 210 and defends with position and stick rather than weight.”
leadershipa strength· the room, and who holds it
“Second overall in 2008 out of London, Ontario, sixteen seasons, 1,177 games and two Stanley Cups, all of it for one organisation.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,598 minutes

Expected goals: 55%; 87th pct
Shot attempts: 54.6%; 88th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 60 for, 44 against. Expected: 67.9 and 55.5.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

90th

Numbers

87th

The two rank him within 3 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 — 79 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: 22.1 mph; 68th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.43 a game
Distance: 3.58 miles a game
Hardest shot: 99.2 mph; 91st pct

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 · 1598 minutes at five-on-five

Mikey Anderson73%

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: LAK took 54.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 55.0% — 0.9 above the club he did it on.
The role: First pair, 1,598 minutes at five-on-five — 99th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Mikey Anderson	53.9%	57.9%	47.3%
Anze Kopitar	53.9%	55.6%	49.9%
Quinton Byfield	57.3%	54.1%	54.0%

53.9% together, 57.9% for him apart and 47.3% for Anderson apart. He was carrying it: the share stayed with him and left Anderson behind.

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

184 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 15 of them goals. His median goal came from 45 feet. 7% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 74% from beyond forty.