Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

9

Ivan Provorov

Columbus Blue Jackets Defense

All eighty-two games at 22:10, and six hundred and fourteen career games of it on clubs that concede.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2016-17PHI8262430-7340011613.721:59
2017-18PHI82172441+17202022038.424:09
2018-19PHI8271926-16320011454.825:07
2019-20PHI69132336+11247031508.724:51
2020-21PHI5671926+4280021265.625:00
2021-22PHI7992231-20341011705.324:53
2022-23PHI8262127-17240011155.223:01
2023-24CBJ8252732-11200001074.722:10
2024-25 so far
Career61470179249-392161001111775.923:49

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

5 goals and 27 assists in all 82 games — 32 points at 22:10 a night, minus-11, on 107 shots at 4.67 per cent, and 20 penalty minutes.

45.9 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,440 minutes, the 23rd percentile — the most five-on-five ice on the roster. His ice went 67-68 against an expectation of 58.18-68.48 — nine goals scored above expectation and exactly what the chances said at the other end.

The Finesse Game

107 attempts at a median of 52 feet, with 72 per cent from beyond 40 and 8 per cent from inside 20, converting at 4.67 per cent. Seventy goals in 614 career games.

27 assists and 179 for his career. The first pass is short and safe and he does not carry the puck out under a heavy forecheck, and the offensive dimension has never been the reason he plays twenty-two minutes.

The Physical Game

6-1 and 224 and heavy. He blocks shots and he defends positionally, and he will clear the front of his own net without punishing anybody in the process.

20 penalty minutes in 82 games and 216 in 614 for his career is a very low rate for a defenceman taking these minutes. He does not retaliate and he is not an agitator.

The Intangibles

Seventh overall in 2015 by Philadelphia, and 614 games and 249 points at 27 with a career minus-39, almost all of it accumulated on clubs that conceded.

He played all eighty-two games on a team that finished twenty-ninth, at 22:10 a night. A defenceman who is available every night and never takes a penalty is worth more to a bad club than to a good one, and the criticism he attracts is mostly a criticism of the teams he has been asked to hold together.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,440 minutes

Expected goals
45.9%
24th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
48.4%
39th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 67 for, 68 against. Expected: 58.2 and 68.5.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
69th
Numbers
24th

The report ranks him 45 points above where the numbers do. 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 201 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 68 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 · 1440 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
CBJ took 45.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 45.9% — level with the club he did it on.
The role
First pair, 1,440 minutes at five-on-five — 96th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Damon Severson49.3%44.2%47.1%
Johnny Gaudreau52.4%43.2%47.8%
Kirill Marchenko41.4%47.5%47.2%

49.3% together, 44.2% for him apart and 47.1% for Severson apart. He was worse away from Severson, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Severson 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

153 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 5 of them goals. His median goal came from 34 feet. 8% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 72% from beyond forty.