Jon Merrill
Minnesota Wild Defense
Six hundred and twelve games, 22 goals, and a third pairing that came out even.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013-14 | NJD | 52 | 2 | 9 | 11 | -3 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 45 | 4.4 | 19:14 |
| 2014-15 | NJD | 66 | 2 | 12 | 14 | -14 | 24 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 47 | 4.3 | 20:33 |
| 2015-16 | NJD | 47 | 1 | 4 | 5 | -15 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 30 | 3.3 | 16:54 |
| 2016-17 | NJD | 51 | 1 | 5 | 6 | -9 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 48 | 2.1 | 18:34 |
| 2017-18 | VGK | 34 | 1 | 2 | 3 | +7 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 30 | 3.3 | 16:05 |
| 2018-19 | VGK | 57 | 3 | 12 | 15 | +16 | 53 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 72 | 4.2 | 17:53 |
| 2019-20 | VGK | 49 | 2 | 5 | 7 | +9 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 37 | 5.4 | 18:09 |
| 2020-21 | DET/MTL | 49 | 0 | 5 | 5 | -9 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 41 | 0.0 | 18:15 |
| 2021-22 | MIN | 69 | 4 | 16 | 20 | +15 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 59 | 6.8 | 17:07 |
| 2022-23 | MIN | 73 | 2 | 10 | 12 | -2 | 38 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 43 | 4.7 | 15:09 |
| 2023-24 | MIN | 65 | 4 | 7 | 11 | 0 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 42 | 9.5 | 12:47 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 612 | 22 | 87 | 109 | -5 | 301 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 494 | 4.5 | 17:16 |
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
65 games, 4 goals and 7 assists for 11 points, 30 penalty minutes, 12:47 a night and even. He took 50.7 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 800 minutes, the 58th percentile, and his ice went 28-31 against an expectation of 28.06-27.28.
Level with the chances at one end and four more conceded than they called for at the other. A third pairing that broke even in the run of play, which is the whole assignment.
The Finesse Game
60 attempts at a median of 47 feet with 62 per cent from beyond 40, converted at 9.5 per cent against a career 4.45.
87 career assists in 612 games. Twenty-two goals in eleven seasons, and last season’s four ties his career high. He puts the puck off the glass and changes.
The Physical Game
He is 6-3 and 204 and defends by position, holding the front of the net rather than chasing the corner.
301 career penalty minutes in 612 games is a moderate rate. He blocks shots and kills penalties, and he is hard to move out of the crease.
The Intangibles
A second-round pick in 2010 out of Oklahoma City, three years at Michigan, eleven seasons across five organisations, and 109 points in 612 games.
He is 32 and has been a sixth defenceman for a decade without ever being a problem. On a club with the second-best chance suppression in hockey the third pair matters, and this one held.
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.
- slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
20.0% of his attempts in the slot, 97th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
“He blocks shots and kills penalties, and he is hard to move out of the crease.”
“He blocks shots and kills penalties, and he is hard to move out of the crease.”
“He blocks shots and kills penalties, and he is hard to move out of the crease.”
“He is 6-3 and 204 and defends by position, holding the front of the net rather than chasing the corner.”
“He puts the puck off the glass and changes.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 800 minutes
- Expected goals
- 50.7%
- 59th pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.6%
- 52nd 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, 31 against. Expected: 28.1 and 27.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 46 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 — 59 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 · 65 games
- Top speed
- 21.0 mph
- 20th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.08 a game
- Distance
- 1.72 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 88.4 mph
- 30th 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 · 800 minutes at five-on-five
- Alex Goligoskioff the roster10%
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
- MIN took 51.3% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.7% — 0.6 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 800 minutes at five-on-five — 38th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dakota Mermis | 50.0% | 51.2% | 48.8% |
| Marco Rossi | 49.8% | 51.1% | 53.7% |
| Kirill Kaprizov | 58.1% | 47.2% | 55.1% |
50.0% together, 51.2% for him apart and 48.8% for Mermis 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
60 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 46 feet. 13% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 62% from beyond forty.