This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2024-25 report →
Erik Johnson
Buffalo Sabres Defense
First overall in 2006, a Stanley Cup at thirty-four, and no goals in sixty-three games.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-08 | STL | 69 | 5 | 28 | 33 | -9 | 28 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 105 | 4.8 | 18:11 |
| 2009-10 | STL | 79 | 10 | 29 | 39 | +1 | 79 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 186 | 5.4 | 21:27 |
| 2010-11 | STL/COL | 77 | 8 | 21 | 29 | -13 | 56 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 161 | 5.0 | 22:49 |
| 2011-12 | COL | 73 | 4 | 22 | 26 | -7 | 26 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 155 | 2.6 | 20:50 |
| 2012-13 | COL | 31 | 0 | 4 | 4 | -3 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 64 | 0.0 | 20:45 |
| 2013-14 | COL | 80 | 9 | 30 | 39 | +5 | 61 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 157 | 5.7 | 23:00 |
| 2014-15 | COL | 47 | 12 | 11 | 23 | +2 | 33 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 115 | 10.4 | 24:25 |
| 2015-16 | COL | 73 | 11 | 16 | 27 | -19 | 50 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 175 | 6.3 | 23:27 |
| 2016-17 | COL | 46 | 2 | 15 | 17 | -6 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 96 | 2.1 | 22:05 |
| 2017-18 | COL | 62 | 9 | 16 | 25 | +3 | 58 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 168 | 5.4 | 25:26 |
| 2018-19 | COL | 80 | 7 | 18 | 25 | +8 | 38 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 144 | 4.9 | 21:49 |
| 2019-20 | COL | 59 | 3 | 13 | 16 | +9 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 99 | 3.0 | 21:03 |
| 2020-21 | COL | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | +2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0.0 | 13:26 |
| 2021-22 | COL | 77 | 8 | 17 | 25 | +22 | 24 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 139 | 5.8 | 17:17 |
| 2022-23 | COL | 63 | 0 | 8 | 8 | +8 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 98 | 0.0 | 17:15 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 920 | 88 | 249 | 337 | +3 | 514 | 22 | 4 | 19 | 1867 | 4.7 | 21:20 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 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
No goals and 8 assists in 63 games for Colorado — 8 points at 17:15 a night, plus-8, on 98 shots and 12 penalty minutes.
48.2 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 948 minutes, the 38th percentile, on the defending champions. His ice went 36-32 against an expectation of 35.95-38.69 — six fewer goals conceded than the chances predicted.
Ninety-eight shots and none of them went in, which for a defenceman is unusual enough to be worth stating on its own.
The Finesse Game
98 attempts at a median of 49 feet, 67 per cent from beyond 40, off a shot measured at 96.0 mph — the 83rd percentile.
A 96 mph shot that produced nothing in 63 games is the clearest single illustration of the point this edition keeps arriving at: velocity from the blue line is not a scoring skill. 88 goals in 920 career games.
The passing is safe and the outlet is simple. He is not going to run a power play.
The Physical Game
6-4 and 225 and he defends with size and reach — 514 penalty minutes in 920 games, and he clears the front of his net.
The skating is better than expected for a man who has had as many knee and leg injuries as he has: 22.8 mph at the 76th percentile. The availability is the story of the career — he has played 70 games in a season three times in fifteen years.
The Intangibles
First overall in 2006, and a career that is remembered as a disappointment relative to that and is 920 games and a Stanley Cup long.
He is 35, signed here for one year, and there is only one reason a rebuilding club signs a 35-year-old defenceman coming off a Cup. Buffalo has a room full of young men who have never won anything and a coach who wanted somebody in it who has.
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
- ordinaryraised, and called ordinary
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.
- disciplined· stays out of the box
0.19 penalty minutes a game over 63, 9th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.75) · 35% keep it
“he defends with size and reach — 514 penalty minutes in 920 games, and he clears the front of his net”
“Buffalo has a room full of young men who have never won anything and a coach who wanted somebody in it who has.”
“The passing is safe and the outlet is simple. He is not going to run a power play.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 948 minutes
- Expected goals
- 48.2%
- 38th pct
- Shot attempts
- 48.3%
- 40th 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: 36 for, 32 against. Expected: 36.0 and 38.7.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 11 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 99 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 62 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
2022-23 with COL · 948 minutes at five-on-five
- Samuel Girard35%
- Devon Toews16%
- Jack Johnson9%
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, 2022-23
- The club
- COL took 52.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 48.2% — 4.3 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 948 minutes at five-on-five — 52nd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Samuel Girard | 49.1% | 47.7% | 53.2% |
| J.T. Compher | 51.8% | 46.4% | 52.9% |
| Logan O'Connor | 46.8% | 48.8% | 50.4% |
49.1% together, 47.7% for him apart and 53.2% for Girard apart. Girard was better away from him while his own share held, which is a mark against him more than for 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
122 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 0 of them goals. 11% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 67% from beyond forty.