This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Joel Hanley
Calgary Flames Defense
34 years old, 5-11, 53 games at 18:35 a night, and a plus-12 nobody expected.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | MTL | 10 | 0 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0.0 | 16:00 |
| 2016-17 | MTL | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0.0 | 10:09 |
| 2017-18 | ARI | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0.0 | 11:08 |
| 2018-19 | DAL | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0.0 | 13:42 |
| 2019-20 | DAL | 8 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0.0 | 11:21 |
| 2020-21 | DAL | 35 | 0 | 8 | 8 | +6 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 27 | 0.0 | 13:01 |
| 2021-22 | DAL | 44 | 2 | 4 | 6 | -13 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 18 | 11.1 | 11:56 |
| 2022-23 | DAL | 26 | 0 | 2 | 2 | +5 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 0.0 | 11:38 |
| 2023-24 | DAL/CGY | 42 | 1 | 4 | 5 | +3 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19 | 5.3 | 13:54 |
| 2024-25 | CGY | 53 | 2 | 7 | 9 | +12 | 21 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 42 | 4.8 | 18:35 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 246 | 5 | 33 | 38 | +10 | 84 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 150 | 3.3 | 14:01 |
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
2 goals and 7 assists in 53 games for 9 points, plus-12, on 18:35 a night.
50.2 per cent at five-on-five, the 54th percentile, over 839 minutes — a better share than either of the club’s top-pair defencemen. 86 per cent of his shots came from beyond 40 feet.
The Finesse Game
None, and it is not required. 42 shots in 53 games and 2 goals, and a first pass that is quick and safe.
He does not stall a breakout and he does not attempt anything that could go wrong. On a third pair that is the entire job description and he does it as well as anybody in the league at the price.
The Physical Game
5-11 and 186, and small. He defends with position and stick rather than weight, boxes out rather than clearing, and does not get overpowered as often as the size suggests because he is rarely in a battle he did not choose.
21 penalty minutes over 53 games. Disciplined.
The Intangibles
Undrafted, five organisations, hundreds of American League games, and a genuine NHL role at 34 that he earned twice over.
The projection is 50 games of competent third-pair hockey for almost no money, which is the most efficient thing on this roster. There is no reason to expect it to continue past 35 and no reason to stop now.
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.
- perimeter· shoots from the outside, by choice or because he cannot get in
85.7% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 95th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
“He defends with position and stick rather than weight, boxes out rather than clearing, and does not get overpowered as often as the size suggests because he is rarely in a battle he did not choose.”
“He defends with position and stick rather than weight, boxes out rather than clearing, and does not get overpowered as often as the size suggests because he is rarely in a battle he did not choose.”
“He does not stall a breakout and he does not attempt anything that could go wrong.”
“Undrafted, five organisations, hundreds of American League games, and a genuine NHL role at 34 that he earned twice over.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 839 minutes
- Expected goals
- 50.2%
- 55th pct
- Shot attempts
- 52.5%
- 78th 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: 28 for, 25 against. Expected: 28.8 and 28.6.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 38 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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 66 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 · 53 games
- Top speed
- 21.2 mph
- 29th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.32 a game
- Distance
- 2.72 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 89.9 mph
- 43rd 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 · 839 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, 2024-25
- The club
- CGY took 48.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.2% — 1.5 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 839 minutes at five-on-five — 39th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| MacKenzie Weegar | 52.0% | 46.1% | 50.4% |
| Nazem Kadri | 50.9% | 49.7% | 48.1% |
| Jonathan Huberdeau | 53.0% | 48.5% | 47.8% |
52.0% together, 46.1% for him apart and 50.4% for Weegar apart. He was worse away from Weegar, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Weegar 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
77 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 37 feet. 4% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 86% from beyond forty.