This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Jake Sanderson
Ottawa Senators Defense
57 points and 24:27 a night at 22, and a minus-14 that the chance model says he did not earn.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-23 | OTT | 77 | 4 | 28 | 32 | -6 | 12 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 132 | 3.0 | 21:55 |
| 2023-24 | OTT | 79 | 10 | 28 | 38 | +8 | 23 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 158 | 6.3 | 23:13 |
| 2024-25 | OTT | 80 | 11 | 46 | 57 | -14 | 12 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 195 | 5.6 | 24:27 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 236 | 25 | 102 | 127 | -12 | 47 | 10 | 0 | 7 | 485 | 5.1 | 23:13 |
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
11 goals and 46 assists in 80 games — 57 points, the most of any defenceman on the club, at 24:27 a night, the largest assignment here. 5 power-play goals, 4 game-winners, and only 12 penalty minutes.
51.7 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 66th percentile, across 1,316 minutes. His ice was outscored 38-53 against an expectation of 49.88-46.64 — nine goals of scoring missing and five extra conceded, which is where the minus-14 came from.
The Finesse Game
The skating is the foundation and it is high-end for the position. He carries the puck out of his own zone rather than passing it out, and he does it under a forecheck without visible effort.
195 attempts at a median of 50 feet with 69 per cent from beyond 40 and 3 per cent from inside 20 — this is a point shot, not a weapon, and 46 assists says the value was never going to be in it. He is the first option on the breakout and the club’s whole exit structure runs through him.
The Physical Game
6-2 and 202 and honest rather than heavy. He closes gaps early and takes the puck with his stick before the contact becomes necessary, which is the reason a defenceman playing twenty-four minutes a night takes 12 penalty minutes.
He is not the man who clears the front of his own net and the club has a bigger body for that. What he does do is defend the rush, and he does it by arriving on time rather than by hitting.
The Intangibles
Fifth overall in 2020, son of an NHL defenceman, three full seasons and 236 games, and already among the highest-paid players on the roster on a contract that runs eight years.
He turned 23 in the summer and has led this blue line in ice time for two seasons. The minus-12 across his career is the record of the clubs he has played on.
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.
- disciplined· stays out of the box
0.15 penalty minutes a game over 80, 4th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.75) · 35% keep it
- durable· was available
80 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“He carries the puck out of his own zone rather than passing it out, and he does it under a forecheck without visible effort.”
“He closes gaps early and takes the puck with his stick before the contact becomes necessary, which is the reason a defenceman playing twenty-four minutes a night takes 12 penalty minutes.”
“He is not the man who clears the front of his own net and the club has a bigger body for that.”
“195 attempts at a median of 50 feet with 69 per cent from beyond 40 and 3 per cent from inside 20 — this is a point shot, not a weapon, and 46 assists says the value was never going to be in it.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,316 minutes
- Expected goals
- 51.7%
- 68th pct
- Shot attempts
- 50.2%
- 55th 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: 38 for, 53 against. Expected: 49.9 and 46.6.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 16 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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 79 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, 2024-25 · 80 games
- Top speed
- 23.5 mph
- 97th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 2.49 a game
- Distance
- 3.40 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 95.2 mph
- 79th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.6
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 89.7
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
2024-25 · 1316 minutes at five-on-five
- Artem Zub54%
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
- OTT took 50.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.7% — 1.5 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 1,316 minutes at five-on-five — 92nd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Artem Zub | 54.8% | 48.4% | 54.2% |
| Travis Hamonic | 45.7% | 54.7% | 46.8% |
| Drake Batherson | 52.9% | 51.1% | 47.6% |
54.8% together, 48.4% for him apart and 54.2% for Zub apart. He was worse away from Zub, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Zub 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
260 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 11 of them goals. His median goal came from 40 feet. 3% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 69% from beyond forty.