This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2024-25 report →
Erik Brannstrom
Ottawa Senators Defense
Eighty-six shots and no goals — more shots without scoring than any skater in the league — at 5-10 and 185 pounds.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | OTT | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 18:04 |
| 2019-20 | OTT | 31 | 0 | 4 | 4 | -9 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 38 | 0.0 | 14:51 |
| 2020-21 | OTT | 30 | 2 | 11 | 13 | +3 | 25 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 42 | 4.8 | 16:21 |
| 2021-22 | OTT | 53 | 0 | 14 | 14 | -17 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 86 | 0.0 | 19:46 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 116 | 2 | 29 | 31 | -23 | 71 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 166 | 1.2 | 17:32 |
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
53 games, 0 goals and 14 assists at 19:46 a night, minus-17, thirty penalty minutes, 86 shots. Fifteenth overall in 2017 by Vegas, four seasons, 116 games, 31 points.
Eighty-six shots and no goals is the most shots any skater in the league took without scoring, twenty-five clear of the next man.
The Finesse Game
Fourteen assists and no goals in fifty-three games, and 29 assists against 2 goals across a 116-game career — everything he produces, somebody else finishes.
4.93 shots per 60 is the 61st percentile among defencemen — an ordinary rate — from a 51-foot median with seven per cent from the slot, on 99.2 mph, the 88th percentile for shot speed.
99.2 mph is the 24th-hardest of the 192 defencemen the tracking covers, and he has scored twice in four seasons. Nothing in this file explains that and the report will not invent a mechanism for it.
0.54 even-strength points per 60 is the 8th percentile and forty-three per cent of his points came on the power play, the 94th — he takes 2:07 a night there.
46.4 per cent of the expected goals is the 22nd percentile and 50.0 per cent of the attempts the 51st. The gap between those two is the file in one line: his ice gets attempts and does not get chances.
That came out of 57.7 per cent offensive-zone starts, the 103rd-highest of 652 skaters — soft usage.
The Physical Game
2.23 hits per 60 is the 20th percentile and 3.38 blocks the 24th at 5-10 and 185 pounds — the lightest defenceman on this roster and the 19th-lightest of the 223 in this book.
0.34 penalties drawn per 60 against 0.80 taken. Thirty penalty minutes in fifty-three games.
The Intangibles
21.8 mph is the 42nd percentile, 1.0 bursts per 60 the 32nd, 8.59 miles per 60 the 64th. Every chip measurement is ordinary — which for a 185-pound defenceman is not what the archetype predicts.
He is 23, a fifteenth-overall pick, and has 116 NHL games and two goals. The assists, the shot speed and the attempt share are real; the chance share, the plus-minus and the goal total are not defensible from any angle the data offers.
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.
- sheltered· is started in the attacking end
58% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 90th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
“Fourteen assists and no goals in fifty-three games, and 29 assists against 2 goals across a 116-game career — everything he produces, somebody else finishes.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 861 minutes
- Expected goals
- 46.4%
- 26th pct
- Shot attempts
- 50%
- 56th 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: 23 for, 33 against. Expected: 33.4 and 38.6.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 9 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 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 53 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 · 53 games
- Top speed
- 21.8 mph
- 61st pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.34 a game
- Distance
- 2.83 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 99.2 mph
- 91st pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.5
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.4
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 · 861 minutes at five-on-five
- Artem Zub46%
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 46.4% — 0.7 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 861 minutes at five-on-five — 46th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Artem Zub | 46.5% | 46.2% | 47.4% |
| Brady Tkachuk | 48.5% | 45.3% | 49.3% |
| Tim Stützle | 45.7% | 46.7% | 49.7% |
46.5% together, 46.2% for him apart and 47.4% for Zub 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
113 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 0 of them goals. 4% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 73% from beyond forty.