Jacob MacDonald
San Jose Sharks Defense
Undrafted, thirty years old, and one goal from seventy-four shots on goal.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | FLA | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | +1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 100.0 | 12:03 |
| 2020-21 | COL | 33 | 1 | 8 | 9 | +14 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 49 | 2.0 | 14:57 |
| 2021-22 | COL | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 17 | 0.0 | 10:06 |
| 2022-23 | COL/SJS | 58 | 1 | 7 | 8 | -14 | 23 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 75 | 1.3 | 12:03 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 101 | 3 | 15 | 18 | 0 | 33 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 142 | 2.1 | 12:50 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 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 7 assists in 58 games — 8 points — at 12:03 a night between Colorado and San Jose. Minus-14, 75 shots at 1.3 per cent, 23 penalty minutes.
Fifty-eight games is more than he had played in his previous three NHL seasons put together.
50.1 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five across 655 minutes, the 46th percentile — the best chance share of any San Jose defenceman — with his ice at 17-29 against an expectation of 26.42-26.28. Nine goals short at the good end and three over at the other, on a third pair.
He started 42 per cent of his shifts in the attacking zone, the 18th percentile.
The Finesse Game
75 shots at a median of 36 feet, which for a defenceman is unusually close and reflects a man who joins the rush.
Inside twenty feet: 16 shots on goal and no goals. From twenty to forty: 31 shots and one goal. Beyond forty: 27 shots and none. Seventy-four shots on goal and one of them went in.
A 1.3 per cent shooting percentage against a career 2.1. Three goals in 101 NHL games.
104 tracked attempts, only 14 of them slap shots — a 13.5 per cent share, the lowest on this blue line — and 67 wrist shots. He shoots from where a forward would and does not shoot the way a defenceman does.
94.0 mph at the 71st percentile, which given the shot selection is a hard shot going unused.
The Physical Game
6-0 and 204 pounds. 1.80 miles a game at the 7th percentile, with 1.2 bursts above twenty a game at the 65th and a top speed of 22.5 mph at the 60th.
Twelve minutes a night explains most of the mileage and none of the burst count, which is ordinary. He is an average skater playing very short shifts.
23 penalty minutes in 58 games and 33 in 101 career games. He is not physical and does not defend by contact, which on a third pair against fourth lines has been survivable.
He joins the rush and is caught behind it, which is the trade in every game he plays and the reason the ice time has never grown.
The Intangibles
Undrafted, four seasons, 101 games, 18 points across Florida, Colorado and San Jose.
He had played two NHL games before he was twenty-eight. The career is a minor-league defenceman’s who scored enough there to be given a look, and the look has now lasted three seasons in three organisations.
He is thirty, on a rebuilding club that needs a seventh defenceman and can afford to give him fifty-eight games. That is the whole of the opportunity and he has taken it about as far as it goes.
One goal from seventy-four shots on goal is the sentence this file will be remembered by.
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.
- slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
25.5% of his attempts in the slot, 97th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
“He had played two NHL games before he was twenty-eight.”
“He joins the rush and is caught behind it, which is the trade in every game he plays and the reason the ice time has never grown.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 655 minutes
- Expected goals
- 50.1%
- 54th pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.3%
- 47th 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: 17 for, 29 against. Expected: 26.4 and 26.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 30 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 638 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 60 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, 2022-23 · 58 games
- Top speed
- 22.5 mph
- 84th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.24 a game
- Distance
- 1.80 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 94.0 mph
- 63rd 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 90.0
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
2022-23 · 379 minutes at five-on-five
- Radim Simekoff the roster17%
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, 2022-23
- The club
- SJS took 48.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.1% — 1.6 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- 655 minutes at five-on-five — 26th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mario Ferraro | 46.6% | 51.5% | 45.3% |
| Nico Sturm | 49.3% | 50.3% | 46.6% |
| Steven Lorentz | 59.6% | 48.5% | 45.1% |
46.6% together, 51.5% for him apart and 45.3% for Ferraro apart. He was better away from Ferraro, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Ferraro.
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
102 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 1 of them goals. His median goal came from 31 feet. 21% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 40% from beyond forty.