Jonathan Marchessault

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

76 games, 30 goals and 36 assists at 17:34 a night, plus-3, thirty-six penalty minutes, 251 shots, five power-play goals and four game-winners. Undrafted, and 361 points in 480 games across nine seasons out of it.

The Finesse Game

11.28 shots per 60 is the 14th-most of the 393 forwards who played forty games, and 251 shots is the fourth time in five Vegas seasons he has cleared two hundred and thirty.

Thirty goals at 12.0 per cent, which is the 56th percentile — the goals are the volume, not the conversion.

A 29-foot median with forty-two per cent of his attempts from inside twenty feet. He shoots from further out than the slot men and closer in than the point men, and he takes more of them than almost anybody.

2.35 even-strength points per 60 is the 78th percentile and thirty per cent of his points came on the power play.

54.7 per cent of the expected goals is the 82nd percentile and 56.5 per cent of the attempts the 91st, out of 55.2 per cent offensive-zone starts, the 180th-highest of the 652 skaters who took two hundred end-zone starts.

And then the ledger. His ice went 46-42 against an expectation of 53.54-44.28. Seven and a half goals short in front and two fewer against — the largest shortfall in front of any forward in this chapter, on the club that finished 26th in the league in finishing.

The Physical Game

5-9 and 185 pounds, and thirty-six penalty minutes in seventy-six games.

2.74 hits per 60 is the 33rd percentile and 0.76 blocks the 5th — the lowest block rate of the ten qualified forwards in this chapter — against 0.36 penalties drawn per 60 at the 9th percentile.

A 185-pound winger does not go to the wall and does not get called for it either.

The Intangibles

21.8 mph is the 17th percentile among the 365 tracked forwards and 2.0 bursts over twenty miles an hour per 60 the 9th, against 9.68 miles per 60 at the 53rd.

Always moving, never fast, which at 5-9 and 31 is the shape a great many careers end in — and thirty goals says his has not.

He is 31, undrafted, with 160 goals in 480 games and five seasons in Vegas, and 43.7 per cent offensive-zone time was the 90th percentile. A winger who shoots this often at this size, from this chair, will score thirty again if the club shoots its expectation. It did not, and the seven and a half is where the season went.