This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2025-26 report →
Erik Gustafsson
Detroit Red Wings Defense
One hundred and seventy-seven assists in 455 games, and the best chance share on this roster — produced in New York.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | CHI | 41 | 0 | 14 | 14 | +11 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 58 | 0.0 | 15:27 |
| 2017-18 | CHI | 35 | 5 | 11 | 16 | +1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 71 | 7.0 | 18:33 |
| 2018-19 | CHI | 79 | 17 | 43 | 60 | -6 | 34 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 160 | 10.6 | 22:35 |
| 2019-20 | CHI/CGY | 66 | 6 | 23 | 29 | -9 | 27 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 103 | 5.8 | 20:23 |
| 2020-21 | PHI/MTL | 29 | 1 | 11 | 12 | -1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 33 | 3.0 | 16:42 |
| 2021-22 | CHI | 59 | 3 | 15 | 18 | -4 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 79 | 3.8 | 16:13 |
| 2022-23 | WSH/TOR | 70 | 7 | 35 | 42 | +9 | 23 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 122 | 5.7 | 19:46 |
| 2023-24 | NYR | 76 | 6 | 25 | 31 | +3 | 35 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 93 | 6.5 | 17:24 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 455 | 45 | 177 | 222 | +4 | 143 | 6 | 0 | 6 | 719 | 6.3 | 18:49 |
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
Seventy-six games in New York, 6 goals and 25 assists, 17:24 a night and plus-3. He took 53.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,175 minutes, the 78th percentile, and his ice went 46-44 against an expectation of 52.17-45.54.
That is the best chance share on the Detroit roster and it was earned on a club that finished first in the league. Thirty-one points from a third-pair defenceman is good value and it has been his level for six seasons.
The Finesse Game
He moves the puck out on the first pass and he moves it early. One hundred and seventy-seven assists in 455 career games is a top-pair playmaking rate on a man who has almost never played a top pair.
Ninety-three shots at a median of 53 feet with 71 per cent from beyond 40. Forty-five goals in 455 games and 6 career power-play goals; the shot exists to be tipped.
The Physical Game
He is 6-0 and 190 and does not play a physical game. Thirty-five penalty minutes in 76 games is a moderate rate and almost none of it is contact.
He does not clear his crease and he does not win the wall. The defending is anticipation and an early stick, and against a heavy forecheck it does not hold.
The Intangibles
A fourth-round pick in 2012 out of Nynashamn, eight seasons across a series of clubs, and 455 games. He had a 60-point season in Chicago at 26 and has been a third-pair defenceman almost everywhere since.
Detroit lost Jake Walman and Shayne Gostisbehere in one summer and signed him to replace both. He is a cheaper version of the second.
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.
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
53.4% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 48.8% for his club in the minutes he sat: +4.6, 92nd percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
“He moves the puck out on the first pass and he moves it early.”
“He does not clear his crease and he does not win the wall.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,175 minutes
- Expected goals
- 53.4%
- 79th pct
- Shot attempts
- 53.9%
- 85th 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: 46 for, 44 against. Expected: 52.2 and 45.5.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 66 points above where the report does. 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 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 · 76 games
- Top speed
- 22.3 mph
- 74th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.47 a game
- Distance
- 2.64 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 95.7 mph
- 76th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.7
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.2
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 with NYR · 1175 minutes at five-on-five
- Adam Fox12%
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
- NYR took 50.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 53.4% — 3.3 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 1,175 minutes at five-on-five — 80th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Braden Schneider | 50.5% | 56.2% | 48.0% |
| Artemi Panarin | 60.9% | 48.4% | 55.2% |
| Alexis Lafrenière | 60.8% | 48.6% | 53.4% |
50.5% together, 56.2% for him apart and 48.0% for Schneider apart. He was better away from Schneider, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Schneider.
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
147 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 6 of them goals. His median goal came from 51 feet. 6% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 71% from beyond forty.