This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Jordan Staal

Sixty-eight per cent of his shots from the slot at the 96th percentile, 2:13 a night shorthanded at the 96th, and 47.4 per cent offensive-zone time — the highest figure in the league.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2006-07	PIT	81	29	13	42	+16	24	4	7	4	131	22.1	14:56
2007-08	PIT	82	12	16	28	-5	55	3	0	4	183	6.6	18:16
2008-09	PIT	82	22	27	49	+5	37	2	1	3	166	13.3	19:51
2009-10	PIT	82	21	28	49	+19	57	1	2	1	195	10.8	19:24
2010-11	PIT	42	11	19	30	+7	24	3	0	4	91	12.1	21:21
2011-12	PIT	62	25	25	50	+11	34	5	3	0	149	16.8	20:03
2012-13	CAR	48	10	21	31	-18	32	1	0	1	114	8.8	20:06
2013-14	CAR	82	15	25	40	+2	34	2	1	2	165	9.1	18:57
2014-15	CAR	46	6	18	24	-6	14	1	0	1	92	6.5	18:33
2015-16	CAR	82	20	28	48	+6	34	6	0	4	151	13.3	18:18
2016-17	CAR	75	16	29	45	-1	38	4	1	3	164	9.8	18:40
2017-18	CAR	79	19	27	46	-4	26	4	2	2	160	11.9	19:15
2018-19	CAR	50	11	17	28	+6	26	0	0	1	121	9.1	18:17
2019-20	CAR	68	8	19	27	+3	40	2	0	0	125	6.4	17:30
2020-21	CAR	53	16	22	38	+2	30	7	0	4	103	15.5	18:29
2021-22	CAR	78	17	19	36	+11	18	1	0	2	146	11.6	16:38
2022-23 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	1092	258	353	611	+54	523	46	17	36	2256	11.4	18:32

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

17 goals and 19 assists in 78 games — 36 points at 16:38 a night, plus-11, on 146 shots and 18 penalty minutes.

57.2 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,015 minutes, the 94th percentile. His ice went 46-34 against an expectation of 48.37-36.17 — two goals of scoring missing and two fewer conceded than the chances predicted.

47.4 per cent of his even-strength time was spent in the offensive zone — the highest figure of any forward in this book. For a man whose reputation is defensive, that is the point: his line does not spend time in its own end because possessions end there.

2:13 a night shorthanded is the 96th percentile among forwards, on the best kill in the league.

The Finesse Game

68 per cent of his attempts came from inside the slot, the 96th percentile, at a median of 19 feet. Seventeen goals off 146 attempts at 11.6 per cent. He scores from where a 6-4 centre should score from and nowhere else.

1.91 even-strength points per 60 is the 58th percentile and 611 points in 1,092 career games. The scoring is not why he is on the ice.

2.36 giveaways per 60 is high for a man who plays a low-risk game, and comes from the puck being on his stick under pressure below the goal line.

The Physical Game

6-4 and 220, and 9.80 hits per 60 is the 88th percentile among forwards. He finishes everything, at thirty-three, on sixteen minutes a night.

0.42 penalties taken per 60 is the 22nd percentile and 18 penalty minutes in 78 games. A heavy forward who never fouls is the rarest combination in this section of the book.

Top speed 22.3 mph at the 49th percentile with 1.7 bursts above 20 mph a game at the 76th. He accelerates better than he flies.

The Intangibles

Second overall in 2006 by Pittsburgh, a Stanley Cup at twenty, and 1,092 games. Captain of this club since 2019, and 1,092 games across two organisations.

He is 34, signed for two more years. The measured record says he is one of the most effective two-way centres in hockey and has been for a decade, and the point totals have never once said so — which is why he has been underrated at every stop and will be for the rest of it.

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.

slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
68.5% of his attempts in the slot, 96th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
durable· was available
78 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
penalty-killera strength· trusted a man short
“2:13 a night shorthanded is the 96th percentile among forwards, on the best kill in the league”
net-fronta strength· lives in the blue paint; the screens and the tips
“68 per cent of his attempts came from inside the slot, the 96th percentile, at a median of 19 feet”
leadershipa strength· the room, and who holds it
“Captain of this club since 2019, and 1,092 games across two organisations”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,015 minutes

Expected goals: 57.2%; 95th pct
Shot attempts: 58.3%; 98th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 46 for, 34 against. Expected: 48.4 and 36.2.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

87th

Numbers

95th

The 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 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 70 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, 2021-22 · 78 games

Top speed: 22.3 mph; 57th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 1.68 a game
Distance: 2.72 miles a game
Hardest shot: 86.2 mph; 45th pct

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

2021-22 · 1015 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, 2021-22

The club: CAR took 55.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 57.2% — 2.0 above the club he did it on.
The role: First line, 1,015 minutes at five-on-five — 63rd percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Jesper Fast	59.1%	51.9%	54.0%
Nino Niederreiter	57.3%	57.0%	56.8%
Brady Skjei	55.2%	58.9%	52.6%

59.1% together, 51.9% for him apart and 54.0% for Fast apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.

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

203 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 15 of them goals. His median goal came from 17 feet. 56% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 11% from beyond forty.