John Ludvig
Colorado Avalanche Defense
Forty-seven penalty minutes in thirty-three games, which is the entire scouting report.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-24 | PIT | 33 | 3 | 2 | 5 | -12 | 47 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 24 | 12.5 | 11:48 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 33 | 3 | 2 | 5 | -12 | 47 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 24 | 12.5 | 11:48 |
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
Thirty-three games in Pittsburgh, his first in the league, 3 goals and 2 assists, 47 penalty minutes, 11:48 a night and minus-12. He took 48.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 363 minutes, the 42nd percentile, and his ice went 12-24 against an expectation of 13.93-14.75.
Six goals of scoring missing behind a third-pair defenceman in a third of a season is noise. The chance share is respectable and it is the number to keep.
The Finesse Game
Twenty-four shots and 3 went in, which is a 12.50 per cent conversion no defenceman sustains. Six per cent of his attempts came from inside 20 feet and 72 per cent from beyond 40.
Two assists in 33 games. There is no puck-moving game to speak of and the first pass is the simplest one available.
The Physical Game
Forty-seven penalty minutes in 33 games is a high rate for a third-pair defenceman and it is the entire reason he has a job. He finishes checks hard, at 6-1 and 210, and he answers for teammates.
He clears the front of his own net and is unpleasant to play against below the goal line. A rate that high also means a fair number of them are taken after being beaten to a spot.
The Intangibles
A third-round pick in 2019 out of Liberec, drafted by Florida, developed by Pittsburgh, and now on Colorado’s roster at 24. Thirty-three games is a start and nothing more.
On a club with the lightest defenceman in the edition and two more built on skating, a man who will fight has an obvious place in the room.
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.
- hard-minutes· is started in his own end, against the other club's best
34% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 2nd percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
“He finishes checks hard, at 6-1 and 210, and he answers for teammates.”
“He clears the front of his own net and is unpleasant to play against below the goal line.”
“A rate that high also means a fair number of them are taken after being beaten to a spot.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 363 minutes
- Expected goals
- 48.6%
- 43rd pct
- Shot attempts
- 50.9%
- 62nd 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: 12 for, 24 against. Expected: 13.9 and 14.8.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 42 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 — 52 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 · 33 games
- Top speed
- 20.9 mph
- 17th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.27 a game
- Distance
- 1.70 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 96.2 mph
- 78th 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 with PIT · 363 minutes at five-on-five
- Ryan Shea18%
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
- PIT took 51.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 48.6% — 2.5 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 363 minutes at five-on-five — 11th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Evgeni Malkin | 46.9% | 49.5% | 53.9% |
| Reilly Smith | 50.0% | 47.9% | 52.9% |
| Lars Eller | 52.7% | 46.9% | 50.5% |
46.9% together, 49.5% for him apart and 53.9% for Malkin apart. Malkin was better away from him while his own share held, which is a mark against him more 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
36 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 3 of them goals. His median goal came from 60 feet. 6% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 72% from beyond forty.