Armchair Hockey Scout Beta
84

Jan Rutta

San Jose Sharks Defense

Undrafted, a career plus-28, and the second-lowest chance share in this edition over a thousand minutes.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2017-18CHI5761420-124201718.519:15
2018-19CHI/TBL37268+416000424.815:36
2019-20TBL33167+614000432.315:33
2020-21TBL35088+1222000460.016:02
2021-22TBL7631518+2547000863.516:23
2022-23PIT56369+330000644.717:07
2023-24SJS6951419-2138001697.219:43
2024-25 so far
Career363206989+281912024214.817:23

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

69 games, 5 goals and 14 assists for 19 points, none on the power play, 38 penalty minutes, 19:43 a night and minus-21, with 1 game-winner. He took 38.1 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,138 minutes — the second-lowest share of anybody in this edition who played a thousand minutes — and his ice went 33-56 against an expectation of 34.24-55.73.

Within a goal and a half of the chances at both ends, which is to say the result was exactly what the ice deserved. Nineteen points is one short of his career high, set in his first season.

The Finesse Game

102 attempts at a median of 55 feet with 78 per cent of them from beyond forty and 7 per cent from inside twenty, 69 of those on goal, converted at 7.2 per cent against a career 4.75 across 421 shots.

Sixty-nine career assists against 20 goals in 363 games. A fifty-five-foot median attempt is the most distant shot chart on this club; the shot exists to be tipped and the passing is a clean first outlet rather than a play through the middle.

The Physical Game

He is 6-3 and 204 and took 38 penalty minutes.

191 career penalty minutes in 363 games. He is a large defenceman who plays a simple, physical game in front of his own net and does not chase the puck into the corner when he can wait for it to come back.

The Intangibles

Undrafted, seven seasons, four organisations, and 89 points in 363 games.

A career plus-28 across seven seasons, behind only Tyler Toffoli and Marc-Edouard Vlasic on this roster. He was undrafted, reached the league at 27, and has been a useful third-pairing defenceman on four clubs since.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,138 minutes

Expected goals
38.1%
2nd pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
42.4%
6th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 33 for, 56 against. Expected: 34.2 and 55.7.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
39th
Numbers
2nd

The report ranks him 37 points above where the numbers do. 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.

Usual linemates

2023-24 · 1138 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, 2023-24

The club
SJS took 40.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 38.1% — 2.7 below the club he did it on.
The role
Second pair, 1,138 minutes at five-on-five — 77th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Henry Thrun38.9%37.6%38.3%
Fabian Zetterlund40.2%37.0%42.4%
William Eklund41.4%36.8%43.7%

38.9% together, 37.6% for him apart and 38.3% for Thrun apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.

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

102 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 5 of them goals. His median goal came from 38 feet. 7% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 77% from beyond forty.