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

Erik Gudbranson

Eight hundred and thirty-nine penalty minutes in 789 games, and the fourteenth percentile of chances.

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

2011-12	FLA	72	2	6	8	-19	78	0	0	0	76	2.6	14:12
2012-13	FLA	32	0	4	4	-22	47	0	0	0	49	0.0	18:45
2013-14	FLA	65	3	6	9	-7	114	0	0	0	92	3.3	17:59
2014-15	FLA	76	4	9	13	-4	58	0	0	0	110	3.6	18:37
2015-16	FLA	64	2	7	9	+3	49	0	0	0	73	2.7	20:07
2016-17	VAN	30	1	5	6	-14	18	0	0	1	40	2.5	20:20
2017-18	VAN	52	2	3	5	-7	35	0	0	0	53	3.8	18:25
2018-19	VAN/PIT	76	2	8	10	-20	87	0	0	1	94	2.1	18:14
2019-20	PIT/ANA	51	4	5	9	0	95	0	0	0	78	5.1	19:22
2020-21	OTT/NSH	45	1	3	4	-12	59	0	0	1	58	1.7	17:54
2021-22	CGY	78	6	11	17	+15	68	0	0	0	129	4.7	18:08
2022-23	CBJ	70	1	12	13	-24	57	0	0	1	102	1.0	21:18
2023-24	CBJ	78	6	20	26	-14	74	0	0	1	91	6.6	19:40
2024-25 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	789	34	99	133	-125	839	0	0	5	1045	3.3	18:36

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

6 goals and 20 assists in 78 games — 26 points at 19:40 a night, minus-14, with 1 game-winner on 91 shots at 6.59 per cent, and 74 penalty minutes.

43.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,290 minutes, the 12th percentile. His ice went 41-57 against an expectation of 45.64-59.85 — five goals scored above expectation and exactly what the chances said at the other end, on a club conceding 300.

The Finesse Game

91 attempts at a median of 54 feet, with 84 per cent from beyond 40 and 2 per cent from inside 20, converting at 6.59 per cent. Thirty-four goals in 789 NHL games.

20 assists — a career high, and 99 in 789 games is the whole record. He does not carry the puck out and the first pass goes off the glass as often as to a man, and none of it is why he has a thirteen-year career.

The Physical Game

6-5 and 222, and he is the reason opponents look up on this blue line. He clears the front of his own net by moving grown men out of it and he finishes every check.

839 penalty minutes in 789 games and he will fight anybody. He takes liberties and he answers for them, and 74 penalty minutes in 78 games is the second-highest total on the roster.

The Intangibles

Third overall in 2010 by Florida, and 789 games and 133 points at 32 across six clubs with a career minus-125.

A third-overall pick whose career is 34 goals and 839 penalty minutes is one of the clearest illustrations in this edition of what a top-ten pick can turn into, and he has been a useful third-pairing defenceman for a decade doing it.

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
he lacks itraised, and he does not have it

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.

perimeter· shoots from the outside, by choice or because he cannot get in
83.7% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 94th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
hard-shot· beats a goaltender from range
5 of 108 attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 4.6%, 93rd percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.21) · 16% keep it
durable· was available
78 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
clears-the-creasea strength· moves grown men off the front of his net
“**He clears the front of his own net by moving grown men out of it and he finishes every check.**”
punishinga strength· finishes checks; hurts people legally
“**He clears the front of his own net by moving grown men out of it and he finishes every check.**”
nastya strength· hard to play against; the edge is the point
“**6-5 and 222, and he is the reason opponents look up on this blue line.**”
takes-libertiesa strength· crosses the line and knows where it is
“**He takes liberties and he answers for them**, and 74 penalty minutes in 78 games is the second-highest total on the roster.”
transitionhe lacks it· carries it out; gains the line under control
“**He does not carry the puck out and the first pass goes off the glass as often as to a man**, and none of it is why he has a thirteen-year career.”
playmakerhe lacks it· passes up the shot a scorer takes
“**He does not carry the puck out and the first pass goes off the glass as often as to a man**, and none of it is why he has a thirteen-year career.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,290 minutes

Expected goals: 43.3%; 12th pct
Shot attempts: 44.5%; 15th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 41 for, 57 against. Expected: 45.6 and 59.9.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

13th

Numbers

12th

The two rank him within 1 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 — 59 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 · 78 games

Top speed: 22.0 mph; 65th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.55 a game
Distance: 2.58 miles a game
Hardest shot: 98.5 mph; 88th 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 · 1290 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: CBJ took 45.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 43.3% — 2.6 below the club he did it on.
The role: Second pair, 1,290 minutes at five-on-five — 89th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Jake Bean	44.5%	42.3%	45.1%
Alexandre Texier	41.1%	44.1%	43.7%
Cole Sillinger	40.1%	44.4%	45.4%

44.5% together, 42.3% for him apart and 45.1% for Bean 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

129 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 6 of them goals. His median goal came from 52 feet. 2% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 84% from beyond forty.