This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Jackson LaCombe
Mighty Ducks of Anaheim Defense
14 goals and 43 points at 24, on the best chance share of any defenceman here — which is still the 35th percentile.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-23 | ANA | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 | 18:29 |
| 2023-24 | ANA | 71 | 2 | 15 | 17 | -24 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 55 | 3.6 | 19:23 |
| 2024-25 | ANA | 75 | 14 | 29 | 43 | 0 | 28 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 134 | 10.4 | 22:18 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 148 | 16 | 44 | 60 | -25 | 52 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 190 | 8.4 | 20:51 |
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
14 goals and 29 assists in 75 games for 43 points, even, on 22:18 a night — the heaviest workload on the club and a career high by 25 points.
48.4 per cent at five-on-five, the 35th percentile, which is the best figure on this blue line and a reminder of what the rest of it looks like. 134 shots from a median of 45 feet with 22 per cent inside 20 — an unusually aggressive shot chart for a defenceman.
The Finesse Game
The skating is the reason for all of it. He leaves his own zone with the puck rather than passing it away, and he joins the rush as a genuine fourth attacker rather than as a trailer — 14 goals from a defenceman is not a point-shot total, it is a man arriving in the slot.
The passing is quick and mostly right. What is still developing is the read on when not to go, and on a club that conceded 250 goals it is difficult to separate his errors from the general condition.
The Physical Game
6-2 and 208, and he defends with feet and reach rather than weight. He is not moved off pucks easily but he does not clear a crease, and against a heavy forecheck he escapes rather than absorbs.
28 penalty minutes over 75 games. The durability has been good since he arrived.
The Intangibles
A second-round pick, four years at Minnesota, and a slow arrival that has turned into the club’s best defenceman almost overnight.
The projection is a genuine top-pair defenceman on a good team, and the caution is that everything measured about him last season happened in front of the worst chance-suppression in the league. 48.4 per cent in that environment is encouraging; nobody yet knows what it is worth in a normal one.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,226 minutes
- Expected goals
- 48.4%
- 35th pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.3%
- 44th 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: 44 for, 51 against. Expected: 50.8 and 54.1.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 29 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 357 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 75 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
2024-25 · 1226 minutes at five-on-five
- Radko Gudas74%
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
- ANA took 44.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 48.4% — 3.8 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,226 minutes at five-on-five — 87th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Radko Gudas | 47.7% | 50.5% | 42.6% |
| Troy Terry | 53.0% | 45.7% | 45.9% |
| Frank Vatrano | 51.5% | 46.6% | 46.5% |
47.7% together, 50.5% for him apart and 42.6% for Gudas apart. Gudas was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Gudas 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
186 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 14 of them goals. His median goal came from 27 feet. 22% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 56% from beyond forty.