This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2023-24 report →

Gustav Lindstrom

The 7th-fewest shots per 60 of the 202 qualified defencemen, and one goal in three NHL seasons.

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

2019-20	DET	16	0	1	1	-6	14	0	0	0	9	0.0	16:32
2020-21	DET	13	0	3	3	+1	0	0	0	0	8	0.0	16:07
2021-22	DET	63	1	12	13	-12	22	0	0	0	41	2.4	16:07
2022-23 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	92	1	16	17	-17	36	0	0	0	58	1.7	16:11

This Season So Far

The 2022-23 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

1 goal and 12 assists in 63 games — 13 points, a minus-12 and 22 penalty minutes at 16:07 a night, the 14th percentile among defencemen.

46.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 937 minutes, the 21st percentile, and 45.5 per cent of the attempts, the 12th. His ice went 32-45 against an expectation of 34.51-40.07.

The Finesse Game

2.42 shots per 60 is the 7th-fewest of the 202 qualified defencemen. Forty-one shots in sixty-three games — two-thirds of a shot a night from a man playing sixteen minutes.

One goal on 41 shots is 2.4 per cent, the 15th percentile, and it is the only goal he has scored in 92 NHL games.

0.84 even-strength points per 60 is the 35th percentile, which given the shot volume means the twelve assists came from moving the puck rather than shooting it. No power-play time: 0:03 a night.

89.1 mph is the 11th percentile — a soft shot, rarely taken.

The Physical Game

6-2 and 194. 3.49 hits per 60 is the 42nd percentile and 4.55 blocks the 62nd. Middling at both, which for a third-pair defenceman whose offence is nil is the wrong place to be middling.

21.2 mph is the 13th percentile among defencemen and 0.7 bursts over 20 mph per 60 is the 19th. He is one of the slower defencemen the league’s tracking measures, and 8.65 miles per 60 is the 70th percentile, so he is out there covering ordinary ground at low speed.

0.65 penalties taken per 60 is the 53rd percentile. Twenty-two minutes in sixty-three games.

The Intangibles

Thirty-eighth overall in 2017, the second round, and 92 NHL games at 23 across three seasons — sixteen, thirteen and sixty-three.

With Filip Zadina he took 55.7 per cent of the chances over 455 attempts and 43.8 without him, which is the best number on the page and belongs to a winger. With Jake Walman he is at 42.5 over 376 and Walman without him is at 52.0.

A right-shot defenceman who is 23, has played a full season and has one goal and no power-play time is a specific kind of prospect: the club is finding out whether there is a defensive game good enough to carry no offence at all, and one season at 46.3 per cent has not answered it.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 937 minutes

Expected goals: 46.3%; 25th pct
Shot attempts: 45.5%; 17th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 32 for, 45 against. Expected: 34.5 and 40.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

1st

Numbers

25th

The numbers rank him 24 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 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 44 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, 2021-22 · 63 games

Top speed: 21.2 mph; 35th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.19 a game
Distance: 2.32 miles a game
Hardest shot: 89.1 mph; 31st 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

2021-22 · 937 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, 2021-22

The club: DET took 45.4% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 46.3% — 0.9 above the club he did it on.
The role: Third pair, 937 minutes at five-on-five — 55th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Pius Suter	49.2%	44.7%	46.7%
Marc Staal	49.1%	44.9%	45.8%
Filip Zadina	55.7%	42.4%	43.8%

49.2% together, 44.7% for him apart and 46.7% for Suter apart. He was worse away from Suter, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Suter did.

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

49 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 1 of them goals. His median goal came from 68 feet. 6% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 73% from beyond forty.