Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

2

Jake Christiansen

Columbus Blue Jackets Defense

A 42.9 per cent chance share — the 8th percentile — across 793 minutes, and 8 points to go with it.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2021-22CBJ8101+10000425.09:46
2022-23CBJ24044-74000250.015:13
2023-24CBJ12022-5200070.013:13
2024-25CBJ68178+611000581.712:32
2025-26 so far
Career11221315-517000942.112:59

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

1 goal and 7 assists in 68 games for 8 points, plus-6, on 12:32 a night.

42.9 per cent at five-on-five, the 8th percentile. His on-ice goals were 39-41 against an expected 27-36, which means 12 goals of finishing luck at one end turned a disastrous chance share into a plus-6. The rating is a fiction.

The Finesse Game

Very little. 58 shots in 68 games with 84 per cent of them from beyond 40 feet and 1 per cent from inside 20 — the most perimeter shot chart on the roster — and 1 goal.

The first pass is adequate when he is not pressured. 7 assists in 68 games is a fair description of the offensive contribution.

The Physical Game

6 feet and 199, and neither heavy nor especially willing. He does not clear a net front and loses more board battles than he wins.

11 penalty minutes over 68 games is disciplined, and on a defenceman with an 8th-percentile share that is not a virtue so much as an absence.

The Intangibles

Undrafted, four American League seasons, and 68 NHL games at 26 on a club with a thin blue line.

The honest projection is a seventh defenceman. A team that missed the playoffs by 2 points giving 793 minutes to an 8th-percentile share is part of the explanation for the 2 points.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 793 minutes

Expected goals
42.9%
8th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
43.8%
7th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 39 for, 41 against. Expected: 27.3 and 36.3.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
0th
Numbers
8th

The two rank him within 8 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 315 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 58 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 · 793 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, 2024-25

The club
CBJ took 48.3% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 42.9% — 5.4 below the club he did it on.
The role
Third pair, 793 minutes at five-on-five — 35th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Damon Severson48.6%37.2%51.4%
Adam Fantilli33.9%46.2%46.8%
Mathieu Olivier45.6%42.0%48.4%

48.6% together, 37.2% for him apart and 51.4% 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

87 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 1 of them goals. His median goal came from 64 feet. 1% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 84% from beyond forty.