Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

28

Ian Cole

Utah Hockey Club Defense

Eight hundred and twenty-six games, 744 penalty minutes, and no power-play goals at all.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2010-11STL26134+635000224.517:36
2011-12STL26156+722000185.615:55
2012-13STL15011-410000100.017:45
2013-14STL463811+1531000456.715:05
2014-15STL/PIT7451217+1451000836.015:59
2015-16PIT7001212-359000720.017:14
2016-17PIT8152126+2672001895.619:49
2017-18PIT/CBJ6751520+1476000845.917:46
2018-19COL7121315-1115000822.419:45
2019-20COL6542226+2136001924.317:42
2020-21COL/MIN54178+2132001303.315:52
2021-22CAR7521719+1583001772.617:09
2022-23TBL7831417+13610001092.819:23
2023-24VAN782911+1061000613.318:41
2024-25 so far
Career82634159193+1547440048743.917:46

This Season So Far

The 2024-25 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

78 games with Vancouver, 2 goals and 9 assists for 11 points, 61 penalty minutes, 18:41 a night and plus-10. He took 53.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,227 minutes, the 81st percentile, and his ice went 53-43 against an expectation of 49.32-42.28.

Four goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and level at the other end. Fifty-three point eight per cent of the chances is the second-highest share of anybody on this roster.

The Finesse Game

97 attempts at a median of 58 feet with 84 per cent of them from beyond forty and 1 per cent from inside twenty, 60 of those on goal, converted at 3.3 per cent against a career 3.89 across 874 shots.

Thirty-four career goals and no power-play goals at all in 826 games. One attempt in a hundred came from inside twenty feet, which is the most perimeter-bound chart on this club; the puck goes at the net from the blue line to be tipped or it goes to the far wall.

The Physical Game

He is 6-1 and 237 — the heaviest man on this roster — and took 61 penalty minutes.

744 career penalty minutes in 826 games. He is enormously thick through the chest and clears the front of his own net by moving people out of it, and fourteen seasons of that is where those 744 minutes came from.

The Intangibles

Eighteenth overall in 2007 by St. Louis, fourteen seasons, and Utah will be his ninth organisation.

A career plus-154 in 826 games — by a distance the largest figure on this roster. He is 35, he has played for eight clubs, and he has finished on the right side of the ledger in eleven of his fourteen seasons.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,227 minutes

Expected goals
53.8%
81st pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
48.9%
45th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 53 for, 43 against. Expected: 49.3 and 42.3.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
67th
Numbers
81st

The two rank him within 14 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 73 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

2023-24 with VAN · 1227 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, 2023-24

The club
VAN took 52.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 53.8% — 1.2 above the club he did it on.
The role
Second pair, 1,227 minutes at five-on-five — 85th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Tyler Myers55.3%53.2%51.5%
Brock Boeser47.5%56.1%51.3%
Conor Garland59.1%51.9%60.5%

55.3% together, 53.2% for him apart and 51.5% for Myers apart. Myers was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Myers 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

97 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 59 feet. 1% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 84% from beyond forty.