This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Jake McCabe
Toronto Maple Leafs Defense
Eight goals on 73 shots from the blue line, and the second-best plus-minus on the club.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013-14 | BUF | 7 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -3 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 | 15:13 |
| 2014-15 | BUF | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0.0 | 11:08 |
| 2015-16 | BUF | 77 | 4 | 10 | 14 | +6 | 51 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 62 | 6.5 | 19:07 |
| 2016-17 | BUF | 76 | 3 | 17 | 20 | -7 | 26 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 79 | 3.8 | 20:42 |
| 2017-18 | BUF | 53 | 3 | 9 | 12 | -11 | 26 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 53 | 5.7 | 19:30 |
| 2018-19 | BUF | 59 | 4 | 10 | 14 | -4 | 35 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 64 | 6.3 | 18:57 |
| 2019-20 | BUF | 66 | 3 | 10 | 13 | -11 | 41 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 75 | 4.0 | 18:32 |
| 2020-21 | BUF | 13 | 1 | 2 | 3 | +2 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 6.7 | 19:11 |
| 2021-22 | CHI | 75 | 4 | 18 | 22 | -27 | 33 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 80 | 5.0 | 20:18 |
| 2022-23 | CHI/TOR | 76 | 3 | 22 | 25 | +19 | 56 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 96 | 3.1 | 19:29 |
| 2023-24 | TOR | 73 | 8 | 20 | 28 | +20 | 56 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 73 | 11.0 | 20:39 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 577 | 33 | 119 | 152 | -16 | 348 | 3 | 2 | 6 | 600 | 5.5 | 19:36 |
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
73 games, 8 goals and 20 assists for 28 points, 1 on the power play, 56 penalty minutes, 20:39 a night and plus-20, with 3 game-winners. He took 52.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,279 minutes, the 74th percentile, and his ice went 63-51 against an expectation of 57.11-50.98.
Six goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and level at the other end. The plus-20 is the third-best figure of anybody who played the season in Toronto and 28 points is a career high by three.
The Finesse Game
106 attempts at a median of 47 feet with 68 per cent of them from beyond forty and 8 per cent from inside twenty, 67 of those on goal, converted at 11.0 per cent against a career 5.50 across 600 shots.
Thirty-three career goals in 577 games. Eight goals in a season from a defenceman who has converted at 5.50 across his career is a rate that will not repeat; the shot is heavy enough to be tipped and that is most of what it is for.
The Physical Game
He is 6-1 and 210 and took 56 penalty minutes.
348 career penalty minutes in 577 games. He is compact and heavy and defends through the man — he clears the crease, finishes checks along the wall, and takes the penalty when the man beats him to the puck first.
The Intangibles
Forty-fourth overall in 2012 by Buffalo, eleven seasons, and Toronto is his third organisation.
A career minus-16 across eleven seasons, most of them in Buffalo. He is 30 and took twenty and a half minutes a night on the second pairing of a club that scored 303 goals.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,279 minutes
- Expected goals
- 52.8%
- 74th pct
- Shot attempts
- 51.2%
- 65th 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: 63 for, 51 against. Expected: 57.1 and 51.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 6 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 — 76 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 · 1279 minutes at five-on-five
- Simon Benoit41%
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
- TOR took 52.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 52.8% — 0.7 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 1,279 minutes at five-on-five — 89th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simon Benoit | 54.9% | 51.6% | 50.4% |
| John Tavares | 54.0% | 52.2% | 55.9% |
| William Nylander | 54.0% | 52.3% | 51.7% |
54.9% together, 51.6% for him apart and 50.4% for Benoit apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
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
106 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 8 of them goals. His median goal came from 27 feet. 8% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 68% from beyond forty.