This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Johnathan Kovacevic
New Jersey Devils Defense
Six foot five, plus-11 in Montreal, and eleven goals of goaltending on his ice on a club that finished 28th.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-22 | WPG | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0.0 | 10:49 |
| 2022-23 | MTL | 77 | 3 | 12 | 15 | +3 | 39 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 92 | 3.3 | 17:25 |
| 2023-24 | MTL | 62 | 6 | 7 | 13 | +11 | 42 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 46 | 13.0 | 16:31 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 143 | 9 | 19 | 28 | +15 | 83 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 145 | 6.2 | 16:51 |
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
62 games in Montreal, 6 goals and 7 assists for 13 points, 42 penalty minutes, 16:31 a night and plus-11. He took 46.5 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 888 minutes, the 29th percentile, and his ice went 39-29 against an expectation of 34.91-40.15, all of it with the Canadiens.
Four goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and eleven fewer conceded than they called for. Montreal had the fourth-best goaltending in the league and a 29th-percentile chance share turned into a plus-11 because of it — the number to be careful with here is the plus-minus.
The Finesse Game
46 shots at a median of 51 feet with 68 per cent from beyond 40, converted at 13.0 per cent against a career 6.21.
19 career assists in 143 games. Six goals on forty-six shots is double his career rate and will not repeat. There is very little puck-moving; he takes it off the wall, puts it out, and goes back to the front of his own net.
The Physical Game
He is 6-5 and 223 and defends with reach and size, and nobody gets to the paint past him easily.
83 career penalty minutes in 143 games is a moderate rate. He clears the crease, blocks shots and kills penalties, and is hard to move from anywhere.
The Intangibles
A third-round pick in 2017 by Winnipeg, out of Hamilton, Ontario, three seasons across two organisations, and 28 points in 143 games.
He is 27 and has 143 games. A right-handed 6-5 defenceman who kills penalties is a useful thing to have and the chance share says he is a third pair rather than a second.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 888 minutes
- Expected goals
- 46.5%
- 29th pct
- Shot attempts
- 47.8%
- 33rd 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: 39 for, 29 against. Expected: 34.9 and 40.1.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 8 points of one another. 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.
Both bars are percentiles among the 415 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 63 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 with MTL · 888 minutes at five-on-five
- Kaiden Guhle21%
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
- MTL took 46.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 46.5% — 0.4 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 888 minutes at five-on-five — 47th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jordan Harris | 49.3% | 45.3% | 46.8% |
| Brendan Gallagher | 51.6% | 44.4% | 49.8% |
| Jake Evans | 51.6% | 44.7% | 43.1% |
49.3% together, 45.3% for him apart and 46.8% for Harris apart. He was worse away from Harris, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Harris 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
73 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 6 of them goals. His median goal came from 36 feet. 12% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 68% from beyond forty.