This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Jalen Chatfield
Carolina Hurricanes Defense
Undrafted, plus-fifteen, and the ninety-ninth percentile of expected goals.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | VAN | 18 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -11 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 0.0 | 13:26 |
| 2021-22 | CAR | 16 | 0 | 3 | 3 | +1 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 25 | 0.0 | 14:47 |
| 2022-23 | CAR | 78 | 6 | 8 | 14 | +23 | 35 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 93 | 6.5 | 14:07 |
| 2023-24 | CAR | 72 | 8 | 14 | 22 | +15 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 90 | 8.9 | 15:12 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 184 | 14 | 26 | 40 | +28 | 79 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 222 | 6.3 | 14:32 |
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
8 goals and 14 assists in 72 games — 22 points at 15:12 a night, plus-15, with 2 game-winners on 90 shots at 8.89 per cent, and 24 penalty minutes.
60.1 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,063 minutes, the 98th percentile — the highest mark on this roster and one of the highest in the edition. His ice went 50-34 against an expectation of 50.00-33.24, so the chances were extraordinary and seven more goals went in against him than they said.
The Finesse Game
90 attempts at a median of 54 feet, with 74 per cent from beyond 40 and 6 per cent from inside 20, converting at 8.89 per cent — eight goals from the point is a genuinely good return.
14 assists. He does not carry the puck out under pressure and the first pass is short, and the offensive record is 40 points in 184 career games. None of it is why he plays.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 209. He finishes every check and he clears the front of his own net, and he plays a good deal heavier than the listing.
24 penalty minutes in 72 games and 79 in 184 for his career is a clean rate for a defenceman who plays this way. He does not retaliate and he is not an agitator; the physical game is position and finishing checks rather than looking for anybody.
The Intangibles
Undrafted, out of Windsor in the junior league, and 184 NHL games at 28 with a career plus-28 after five seasons in the American league.
The ninety-ninth percentile of expected goals on a third pairing is a system as much as a man, and it is also true that the system had to put somebody there and it put him. An undrafted defenceman playing fifteen minutes a night on a 111-point club has earned every one of them.
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.
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
60.1% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 55.4% for his club in the minutes he sat: +4.7, 92nd percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
- sheltered· is started in the attacking end
60% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 92nd percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
“**Undrafted**, out of Windsor in the junior league, and **184 NHL games at 28** with a **career plus-28** after five seasons in the American league.”
“**He finishes every check and he clears the front of his own net**, and he plays a good deal heavier than the listing.”
“**He finishes every check and he clears the front of his own net**, and he plays a good deal heavier than the listing.”
“He does not retaliate and he is not an agitator; the physical game is position and finishing checks rather than looking for anybody.”
“He does not retaliate and he is not an agitator; the physical game is position and finishing checks rather than looking for anybody.”
“**He does not carry the puck out under pressure and the first pass is short**, and the offensive record is 40 points in 184 career games.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,063 minutes
- Expected goals
- 60.1%
- 99th pct
- Shot attempts
- 60.9%
- 100th 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: 50 for, 34 against. Expected: 50.0 and 33.2.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 60 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 67 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, 2023-24 · 72 games
- Top speed
- 23.1 mph
- 93rd pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.39 a game
- Distance
- 2.18 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 92.2 mph
- 53rd pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.7
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.2
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
2023-24 · 1063 minutes at five-on-five
- Dmitry Orlov81%
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
- CAR took 56.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 60.1% — 3.5 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 1,063 minutes at five-on-five — 67th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dmitry Orlov | 61.3% | 55.6% | 51.2% |
| Martin Necas | 57.0% | 61.8% | 51.9% |
| Jesperi Kotkaniemi | 53.9% | 62.6% | 58.2% |
61.3% together, 55.6% for him apart and 51.2% for Orlov 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
140 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 8 of them goals. His median goal came from 45 feet. 6% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 74% from beyond forty.