Ethan Del Mastro

24 games at 22, 6-4, and a defensive defenceman with a 45.5 per cent share on a club whose average was 43.

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

2023-24	CHI	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	—	18:35
2024-25	CHI	24	2	4	6	-3	6	0	0	0	19	10.5	18:19
2025-26 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	26	2	4	6	-3	6	0	0	0	19	10.5	18:20

This Season So Far

The 2025-26 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

2 goals and 4 assists in 24 games for 6 points, minus-3, on 18:19 a night.

45.5 per cent at five-on-five, the 16th percentile, over 410 minutes — better than most of the blue line in front of him. His on-ice goals were 7-19 against an expected 13-16, which is a small sample being ruined by goaltending.

The Finesse Game

Limited and appropriate. 19 shots in 24 games and a first pass that is simple and safe.

There is no offensive projection and none is required. What he does is not lose the puck in his own zone, which on this roster is a distinguishing feature.

The Physical Game

6-4 and 210, and he defends properly. He is difficult to get around, clears his crease, and takes contact without retaliating.

6 penalty minutes in 24 games. Disciplined, and unusually so for a 22-year-old defenceman playing 18 minutes.

The Intangibles

A fourth-round pick, a junior captain, and a first NHL stretch at 22 in which the underlying numbers were better than most of the men ahead of him.

The projection is a third-pair defensive defenceman who kills penalties. On a rebuilding blue line that is a genuinely useful thing and he should be given more of the season.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 410 minutes

Expected goals: 45.5%; 16th pct
Shot attempts: 46.6%; 21st pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 7 for, 19 against. Expected: 13.3 and 16.0.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

31st

Numbers

16th

The two rank him within 15 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 357 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

2024-25 · 410 minutes at five-on-five

Connor Murphy48%
TJ Brodieoff the roster19%

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, 2024-25

The club: CHI took 43.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 45.5% — 2.3 above the club he did it on.
The role: 410 minutes at five-on-five — 12th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Connor Murphy	42.7%	48.0%	45.8%
Connor Bedard	44.1%	46.5%	40.8%
Ryan Donato	48.8%	44.0%	43.2%

42.7% together, 48.0% for him apart and 45.8% for Murphy apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.

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

25 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 36 feet. 16% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 52% from beyond forty.