Ethan Del Mastro
Chicago Blackhawks Defense
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.
45.2 per cent at five-on-five, the 17th percentile, over 410 minutes — better than most of the blue line in front of him. His on-ice goals were 12-17 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.
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.
- 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.
“He is difficult to get around, clears his crease, and takes contact without retaliating.”
“takes contact without retaliating”
“What he does is not lose the puck in his own zone, which on this roster is a distinguishing feature.”
“The projection is a third-pair defensive defenceman who kills penalties.”
“6 penalty minutes in 24 games. Disciplined, and unusually so for a 22-year-old defenceman playing 18 minutes.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 410 minutes
- Expected goals
- 45.2%
- 17th pct
- Shot attempts
- 46.9%
- 24th 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: 12 for, 17 against. Expected: 13.2 and 15.9.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 13 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 637 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.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2024-25 · 24 games
- Top speed
- 21.6 mph
- 46th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.42 a game
- Distance
- 2.52 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 86.5 mph
- 27th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.6
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 89.7
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
2024-25 · 410 minutes at five-on-five
- 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 45.2% — 2.0 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 | 43.7% | 46.4% | 46.5% |
| Connor Bedard | 44.5% | 45.7% | 41.4% |
| Ryan Donato | 50.3% | 42.9% | 45.5% |
43.7% together, 46.4% for him apart and 46.5% for Murphy 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
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.