This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Jordan Staal

One thousand two hundred and fifty-three games, nineteen career shorthanded goals, and the ninety-ninth percentile of chances at thirty-six.

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	CAR	81	17	17	34	+7	32	0	1	3	124	13.7	16:16
2023-24	CAR	80	10	20	30	-14	44	0	1	3	123	8.1	15:23
2024-25 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	1253	285	390	675	+47	599	46	19	42	2503	11.4	18:11

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

10 goals and 20 assists in 80 games — 30 points at 15:23 a night, minus-14, with 1 shorthanded goal and 3 game-winners on 123 shots at 8.13 per cent, and 44 penalty minutes. He was 35.

60.7 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,018 minutes, the 99th percentile — the highest mark of any forward on this roster. His ice went 33-44 against an expectation of 48.36-31.25, so seven goals of scoring went missing and six more were conceded than the chances said.

He took the 43.7 per cent of his end-zone draws in the offensive end, which is to say he started most shifts in his own zone and still produced the best chance share on the club.

The Finesse Game

123 attempts at a median of 19 feet, with 52 per cent from inside 20 and 18 per cent from beyond 40, converting at 8.13 per cent. 285 goals in 1,253 career games.

20 assists. He does not create and he never has — 675 points across eighteen seasons is a good third-line centre’s record and it is not the reason he has one of the longest careers in the league.

He wins the draw that begins the shift, and at 35 it is the last skill to go.

The Physical Game

6-4 and 220, and he is the hardest matchup centre in this chapter to play against. He wins pucks below the goal line, he cannot be moved off the wall, and he finishes checks without going looking for anybody.

44 penalty minutes in 80 games and 599 in 1,253 for his career is a low rate for a man who plays this way, and it is because he is almost never out of position.

He is trusted a man short and has 19 career shorthanded goals.

The Intangibles

Second overall in 2006 by Pittsburgh, a Stanley Cup at 20, and 1,253 games and 675 points across eighteen seasons.

He is the captain and he is 36. The ninety-ninth percentile of expected goals, from a defensive-zone start, at thirty-five, is the clearest statement in this chapter of what this club’s system is — and he has been the man taking those shifts for twelve years.

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.

durable· was available
80 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
faceoffsa strength· takes the draw that starts it
“**He wins the draw that begins the shift**, and at 35 it is the last skill to go.”
hard-to-movea strength· cannot be shifted from where he decides to stand
“**6-4 and 220, and he is the hardest matchup centre in this chapter to play against.** He wins pucks below the goal line, he cannot be moved off the wall, and he finishes checks without going looking for anybody.”
wins-the-walla strength· the corners and below the goal line
“**6-4 and 220, and he is the hardest matchup centre in this chapter to play against.** He wins pucks below the goal line, he cannot be moved off the wall, and he finishes checks without going looking for anybody.”
penalty-killera strength· trusted a man short
“**He is trusted a man short and has 19 career shorthanded goals.**”
defensively-responsiblea strength· comes back; can be trusted with a lead
“44 penalty minutes in 80 games and 599 in 1,253 for his career is a low rate for a man who plays this way, and it is because he is almost never out of position.”
playmakerhe lacks it· passes up the shot a scorer takes
“20 assists. **He does not create and he never has** — 675 points across eighteen seasons is a good third-line centre's record and it is not the reason he has one of the longest careers in the league.”
leadershipa strength· the room, and who holds it
“He is the captain and he is 36. **The ninety-ninth percentile of expected goals, from a defensive-zone start, at thirty-five, is the clearest statement in this chapter of what this club's system is** — and he has been the man taking those shifts for twelve years.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,018 minutes

Expected goals: 60.7%; 99th pct
Shot attempts: 63.4%; 100th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 33 for, 44 against. Expected: 48.4 and 31.3.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

72nd

Numbers

99th

The numbers rank him 27 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 — 74 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 · 80 games

Top speed: 22.0 mph; 40th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 1.23 a game
Distance: 2.49 miles a game
Hardest shot: 87.5 mph; 54th 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

2023-24 · 1018 minutes at five-on-five

Jordan Martinook82%
Jesper Fastoff the roster43%
Seth Jarvis37%

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: CAR took 56.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 60.7% — 4.1 above the club he did it on.
The role: Second line, 1,018 minutes at five-on-five — 60th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Jordan Martinook	60.6%	61.3%	54.1%
Jesper Fast	59.2%	61.9%	60.7%
Jaccob Slavin	62.7%	59.0%	55.7%

60.6% together, 61.3% for him apart and 54.1% for Martinook apart. Martinook was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Martinook 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

174 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 10 of them goals. His median goal came from 14 feet. 52% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 18% from beyond forty.