This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Ian Cole
Tampa Bay Lightning Defense
The worst penalty differential of all 202 defencemen, and the 3rd-highest attempt share.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010-11 | STL | 26 | 1 | 3 | 4 | +6 | 35 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 22 | 4.5 | 17:36 |
| 2011-12 | STL | 26 | 1 | 5 | 6 | +7 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 18 | 5.6 | 15:55 |
| 2012-13 | STL | 15 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -4 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0.0 | 17:45 |
| 2013-14 | STL | 46 | 3 | 8 | 11 | +15 | 31 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 45 | 6.7 | 15:05 |
| 2014-15 | STL/PIT | 74 | 5 | 12 | 17 | +14 | 51 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 83 | 6.0 | 15:59 |
| 2015-16 | PIT | 70 | 0 | 12 | 12 | -3 | 59 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 72 | 0.0 | 17:14 |
| 2016-17 | PIT | 81 | 5 | 21 | 26 | +26 | 72 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 89 | 5.6 | 19:49 |
| 2017-18 | PIT/CBJ | 67 | 5 | 15 | 20 | +14 | 76 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 84 | 5.9 | 17:46 |
| 2018-19 | COL | 71 | 2 | 13 | 15 | -1 | 115 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 82 | 2.4 | 19:45 |
| 2019-20 | COL | 65 | 4 | 22 | 26 | +21 | 36 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 92 | 4.3 | 17:42 |
| 2020-21 | COL/MIN | 54 | 1 | 7 | 8 | +21 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 30 | 3.3 | 15:52 |
| 2021-22 | CAR | 75 | 2 | 17 | 19 | +15 | 83 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 77 | 2.6 | 17:09 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 670 | 29 | 136 | 165 | +131 | 622 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 704 | 4.1 | 17:29 |
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
75 games for Carolina, 2 goals and 17 assists at 17:09 a night, plus-15, eighty-three penalty minutes, 77 shots. Eighteenth overall in 2007 by St Louis, twelve seasons, 670 games, 165 points.
The Finesse Game
57.9 per cent of the attempts is the 3rd-highest of all 202 defencemen and 57.0 per cent of the expected goals the 96th percentile.
Both figures need Carolina beside them immediately. That club finished 2nd in the league in attempt share, 3rd in chances and 1st on the penalty kill, and 47.6 per cent of his even-strength ice was spent in the offensive zone — the 99th percentile of the 568 skaters the tracking covers.
He also started 56.2 per cent of his end-zone shifts in the attacking end, the 142nd-highest of 652 skaters. A soft chair on the best possession club in the East is not a description of the defenceman.
3.59 shots per 60 is the 27th percentile at 2.6 per cent, from a 54-foot median with eighty-nine per cent of his attempts from beyond forty feet and two per cent from the slot — the 0th percentile.
2.24 giveaways per 60 is the 80th percentile against 1.35 takeaways at the 82nd.
The Physical Game
1.54 penalties taken per 60 is the 98th percentile among defencemen and the net of minus-1.166 is the worst of all 202.
Eighty-three penalty minutes in seventy-five games at seventeen minutes a night. Nobody at the position in the league gave more away in the box relative to what he drew.
5.13 hits per 60 is the 64th percentile and 4.85 blocks the 70th at 6-1 and 237 pounds.
The Intangibles
2:30 a night short-handed is the 80th percentile among defencemen, on a club that finished 1st in the league in expected goals against per 60 on the kill.
20.9 mph is the 6th percentile among defencemen, 0.5 bursts over twenty miles an hour per 60 the 11th and 8.05 miles per 60 the 11th.
All three in the bottom eighth of the position at 33. The possession numbers came from the offensive zone on a very good club; the legs are his own.
He is 33, with 165 points in 670 games across twelve seasons. The kill, the blocks and twelve seasons of it are the case. The worst penalty ledger of any defenceman in the league, three skating measurements in the bottom eighth, and possession numbers that belong to Carolina are why Tampa Bay is his seventh club.
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.
- perimeter· shoots from the outside, by choice or because he cannot get in
89.3% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 99th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
“1.54 penalties taken per 60 is the 98th percentile among defencemen and the net of minus-1.166 is the worst of all 202.”
“2:30 a night short-handed is the 80th percentile among defencemen, on a club that finished 1st in the league in expected goals against per 60 on the kill.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,097 minutes
- Expected goals
- 57%
- 94th pct
- Shot attempts
- 57.9%
- 97th 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: 45 for, 39 against. Expected: 52.3 and 39.5.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 41 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 — 61 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 · 75 games
- Top speed
- 20.9 mph
- 25th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.13 a game
- Distance
- 2.30 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 95.0 mph
- 69th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.5
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.4
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 with CAR · 1097 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
- CAR took 55.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 57.0% — 1.8 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 1,097 minutes at five-on-five — 76th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vincent Trocheck | 53.9% | 58.6% | 54.4% |
| Martin Necas | 50.2% | 59.7% | 50.4% |
| Brendan Smith | 59.7% | 56.0% | 50.0% |
53.9% together, 58.6% for him apart and 54.4% for Trocheck apart. He was better away from Trocheck, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Trocheck.
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
121 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 55 feet. 2% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 89% from beyond forty.