This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Dylan Gambrell
Ottawa Senators Center
Fewer offensive-zone starts than any of the 652 skaters the book measures, and the 6th-lowest attempt share of 393 forwards.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-18 | SJS | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 | 10:33 |
| 2018-19 | SJS | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0.0 | 8:38 |
| 2019-20 | SJS | 50 | 5 | 6 | 11 | -8 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 43 | 11.6 | 11:57 |
| 2020-21 | SJS | 49 | 5 | 7 | 12 | -18 | 13 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 48 | 10.4 | 16:02 |
| 2021-22 | OTT | 63 | 3 | 4 | 7 | +2 | 12 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 58 | 5.2 | 12:08 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 173 | 13 | 17 | 30 | -24 | 44 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 156 | 8.3 | 12:60 |
This Season So Far
The 2022-23 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
63 games, 3 goals and 4 assists at 12:08 a night, plus-2, twelve penalty minutes, 58 shots. Sixtieth overall in 2016 by San Jose, five seasons, 173 games, 30 points.
19.1 per cent of his end-zone starts came in the attacking end — the lowest of the 652 skaters who took two hundred end-zone starts. Sixty-five in the attacking end against 275 in his own.
Nobody in the league started a smaller share of his shifts in the offensive zone.
The Finesse Game
41.3 per cent of the attempts is the 6th-lowest of the 393 forwards who played forty games and 39.3 per cent of the expected goals the 9th-lowest. Both are what the chair predicts and both are still among the ten worst in the league.
His ice went 17-22 against an expectation of 18.59-28.73 — seven fewer against than the model asked, which given where every shift began is the most flattering number in the file.
0.54 even-strength points per 60 is the 1st percentile. 4.55 shots per 60 is the 5th and 5.2 per cent went in, the 5th.
0.86 takeaways per 60 is the 5th percentile and 1.02 giveaways the 18th — he neither wins the puck nor loses it, because he rarely has it.
The Physical Game
3.06 blocks per 60 is the 93rd percentile among forwards and 8.08 hits the 81st, at twelve minutes a night in the hardest chair in the league.
0.47 penalties drawn per 60 against 0.47 taken — exactly level, and twelve penalty minutes came out of sixty-three games. For a man starting four-fifths of his shifts in his own end that is genuine discipline.
The Intangibles
22.6 mph is the 62nd percentile, 6.7 bursts per 60 the 66th, 9.54 miles per 60 the 39th. Ordinary speed and sprinting, below-average ground.
He is 26 with 173 NHL games and 30 points. Seven points is what the league’s hardest assignment pays, and the blocks, the hits and the discipline are what it is being paid for.
Three of the four most buried chairs of 652 skaters belong to Gambrell, Austin Watson and Parker Kelly. That is a deliberate structure and its purpose was to let Alex DeBrincat, Drake Batherson and Tim Stützle start where they did.
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-minutes· is started in his own end, against the other club's best
19% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 0th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
“3.06 blocks per 60 is the 93rd percentile among forwards and 8.08 hits the 81st, at twelve minutes a night in the hardest chair in the league.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 672 minutes
- Expected goals
- 39.3%
- 3rd pct
- Shot attempts
- 41.3%
- 3rd 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: 17 for, 22 against. Expected: 18.6 and 28.7.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 23 points above where the numbers do. 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 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 55 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, 2021-22 · 63 games
- Top speed
- 22.6 mph
- 74th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.35 a game
- Distance
- 1.93 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 87.5 mph
- 52nd pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.0
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.1
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
2021-22 · 672 minutes at five-on-five
- Parker Kelly27%
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, 2021-22
- The club
- OTT took 47.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 39.3% — 7.8 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third line, 672 minutes at five-on-five — 30th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austin Watson | 41.8% | 34.2% | 46.8% |
| Nick Holden | 34.9% | 42.1% | 50.3% |
| Artem Zub | 40.5% | 38.6% | 48.3% |
41.8% together, 34.2% for him apart and 46.8% for Watson apart. He was the one being carried: the share went with Watson and did not follow 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
87 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 3 of them goals. His median goal came from 14 feet. 40% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 22% from beyond forty.