Armchair Hockey Scout Beta
26

Erik Brannstrom

Vancouver Canucks Defense

Sixty-two career assists against seven goals, and no game-winners at all in 266 games.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2018-19OTT200000000018:04
2019-20OTT31044-916000380.014:51
2020-21OTT3021113+325100424.816:21
2021-22OTT5301414-1730000860.019:46
2022-23OTT7421618+538000742.716:07
2023-24OTT7631720+536000773.916:35
2024-25 so far
Career26676269-131451003172.216:52

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

76 games with Ottawa, 3 goals and 17 assists for 20 points, 36 penalty minutes, 16:35 a night and plus-5. He took 51.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,092 minutes, the 64th percentile, and his ice went 38-39 against an expectation of 44.06-41.31.

Six goals of finishing below what the chances were worth and two goals of goaltending above them. Twenty points is a career high and the plus-5 matches his best, in a sixth season from a first-round pick.

The Finesse Game

104 attempts at a median of 44 feet with 61 per cent of them from beyond forty and 12 per cent from inside twenty, 75 of those on goal, converted at 3.9 per cent against a career 2.21 across 317 shots.

Sixty-two career assists against 7 goals in 266 games and no game-winners at all. He moves the puck early and accurately and that is the entire offensive case; a career 2.21 per cent across three hundred shots is one of the lowest rates a defenceman can post and still keep taking them.

The Physical Game

He is 5-10 and 185 and took 36 penalty minutes.

145 career penalty minutes in 266 games. He is small for a defenceman and does not defend by contact; the gap is closed with feet and the puck is taken with a stick, and there is no version of this game that involves clearing a crease.

The Intangibles

Fifteenth overall in 2017 by Vegas, six seasons, and Vancouver will be his second organisation.

A career minus-13 in 266 games. He was a first-round pick by a club he never played a game for, spent five seasons in Ottawa, and is 25.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,092 minutes

Expected goals
51.6%
65th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
50%
55th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 38 for, 39 against. Expected: 44.1 and 41.3.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
47th
Numbers
65th

The two rank him within 18 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 — 69 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 with OTT · 1092 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
OTT took 49.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.6% — 2.4 above the club he did it on.
The role
Third pair, 1,092 minutes at five-on-five — 71st percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Drake Batherson50.3%52.2%48.0%
Brady Tkachuk61.9%47.2%53.4%
Ridly Greig43.5%54.6%53.0%

50.3% together, 52.2% for him apart and 48.0% for Batherson 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

104 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 3 of them goals. His median goal came from 13 feet. 12% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 61% from beyond forty.