This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Jake Walman
Detroit Red Wings Defense
The third-hardest registered shot in the National Hockey League, and three goals from beyond forty feet.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | STL | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 | 11:04 |
| 2020-21 | STL | 24 | 1 | 1 | 2 | -7 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 47 | 2.1 | 14:28 |
| 2021-22 | STL/DET | 51 | 3 | 7 | 10 | -3 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 87 | 3.5 | 14:02 |
| 2022-23 | DET | 63 | 9 | 9 | 18 | +10 | 45 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 140 | 6.4 | 19:43 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 139 | 13 | 17 | 30 | +1 | 63 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 275 | 4.7 | 16:40 |
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
9 goals and 9 assists in 63 games, plus-10 on a club that finished minus-39, 45 penalty minutes, 19:43 a night.
That plus-10 is the only positive figure among Detroit’s regular defencemen and one of the few on the roster.
51.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,034 minutes, the 65th percentile — the best of any Detroit defenceman — with his ice at 43-38 against an expectation of 40.84-37.95. Both ends within three goals of the chances, which on this club is remarkable.
Four seasons, 139 games. Nine goals last year is more than he had scored in his career to that point.
The Finesse Game
140 shots at a median of 46 feet, 62 per cent from beyond forty and 6 per cent from inside twenty.
Beyond forty: 84 shots, three goals, 3.57 per cent — a shade above the league rate for a defenceman. Inside forty: 50 shots, six goals, 12.00 per cent.
The registered shot speed is 101.7 mph, the third-hardest in the National Hockey League behind Radko Gudas and Tage Thompson, with 42 slap shots behind the measurement. On Detroit’s blue line only Gostisbehere took more.
So the two hardest and most enthusiastic shooters on this club sit at the two ends of the yield: Gostisbehere at 5.38 per cent from range and Walman at 3.57.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 218. 22.7 mph at the 72nd percentile, 1.0 bursts a game at the 54th, 2.73 miles a game at the 63rd — ordinary in every direction, which for a third-pair defenceman playing twenty minutes is fine.
45 penalty minutes in 63 games is a high rate. He plays a physical game, particularly in front of his own net.
The skating is the reason he can be trusted at that ice time without the possession collapsing, and the 65th-percentile share is the evidence.
The Intangibles
82nd overall in 2014 out of Providence, four seasons of American-league hockey, and a trade from St. Louis at 26 that St. Louis have had cause to think about.
He is 27, has 139 NHL games, and last season was the first in which he was clearly a top-four defenceman. On a Detroit blue line that dressed Chiarot, Maatta, Petry and Holl he was the best of them by the possession numbers and the sixth-most used by ice time.
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
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.
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
51.8% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 44.2% for his club in the minutes he sat: +7.6, 98th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
“He plays a physical game, particularly in front of his own net.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 1,034 minutes
- Expected goals
- 51.8%
- 65th 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: 43 for, 38 against. Expected: 40.8 and 38.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 22 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 — 64 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 · 63 games
- Top speed
- 22.7 mph
- 89th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.98 a game
- Distance
- 2.73 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 101.7 mph
- 100th 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 · 1034 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, 2022-23
- The club
- DET took 46.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.8% — 5.6 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,034 minutes at five-on-five — 62nd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moritz Seider | 51.0% | 53.0% | 43.5% |
| Dylan Larkin | 57.4% | 49.4% | 46.1% |
| Andrew Copp | 44.5% | 55.2% | 42.0% |
51.0% together, 53.0% for him apart and 43.5% for Seider apart. Seider was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Seider 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
177 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 9 of them goals. His median goal came from 35 feet. 6% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 62% from beyond forty.