Jared Spurgeon

This Season So Far

The 2022-23 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

10 goals and 30 assists in sixty-five games at 21:09 a night, plus-32, with ten penalty minutes. Twelve seasons, 772 games, 345 points, a career plus-80.

A 156th-overall pick who is 5-9 and 166 pounds has played 772 NHL games, scored 345 points and carries a career plus-80.

The Finesse Game

0.61 giveaways per 60 is the fewest of all 202 qualified defencemen, from a man who plays 21:09 a night and quarterbacks a power play. That is the number to hold onto. The whole objection to a small defenceman is that pressure takes the puck off him, and the league’s own scorekeepers say nobody at his position loses it less.

1.49 even-strength points per 60 is the 18th-best of 202 and 35 per cent of his points came on the power play, off 3:02 a night, the 93rd percentile.

8.6 per cent shooting is the 93rd percentile among defencemen on 5.06 shots per 60 — ten goals, from a 45-foot median that is the 5th percentile for distance. He shoots from closer than nearly every defenceman in the league and converts better than nearly all of them.

56.5 per cent of the expected goals is the 93rd percentile and 55.6 per cent of the attempts the 91st. His ice went 56-28 against an expectation of 42.66-32.82.

Joel Eriksson Ek took 64.3 per cent of the chances beside him across 466 attempts — the highest pair figure on the club. With Alex Goligoski across 948, 57.1, against Goligoski’s 52.5 alone.

The Physical Game

1.92 hits per 60 is the 14th percentile and 3.62 blocks the 32nd. At 166 pounds he does not initiate contact and does not throw himself in front of pucks, and the club plays him twenty-one minutes anyway.

0.22 penalties taken per 60 is the 11th-fewest of 202 — ten penalty minutes in sixty-five games. He also drew almost nothing, 0.13 per 60, the 5th percentile. He is simply not in the physical part of the game in either direction.

The Intangibles

2.9 bursts over 20 mph per 60 is the 83rd percentile and 8.71 miles per 60 the 80th, at a top speed of 22.1 mph, the 58th. He is not fast; he moves constantly and accelerates often, which is a different thing and the more useful one.

89.9 mph is the 14th percentile — one of the softest shots among defencemen — and he still shot 8.6 per cent, because of where he takes them.

This is the profile worth studying: a small right-handed defenceman who wins the possession battle without weight, without a shot, and without ever giving the puck away. What the data cannot show is the part that makes it work — gap, angle, and the stick that arrives before the body does. It can only show that the results are there, twelve seasons running.