This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Jordan Staal

37 years old, 56 per cent of his shots from inside 20 feet, and a 55.2 per cent chance share in the hardest minutes on the roster.

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	CAR	75	13	23	36	+15	16	0	2	3	107	12.2	15:26
2025-26 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	1328	298	413	711	+62	615	46	21	45	2610	11.4	18:02

This Season So Far

The 2025-26 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

13 goals and 23 assists in 75 games for 36 points, plus-15, on 15:26 a night with 2 shorthanded goals.

55.2 per cent at five-on-five, the 91st percentile, at 37, taking the defensive-zone starts against the other club’s best line. 56 per cent of his shots came from inside 20 feet — a median distance of 18 feet, which is the shot chart of a man who only goes to the net.

The Finesse Game

There has never been much and there is less now. 107 shots and 13 goals, and the hands are heavy in traffic.

What has not declined at all is the hockey sense. He takes away the middle of the ice better than anybody on this roster, he is still among the league’s better faceoff centres, and his positioning is why a 37-year-old with ordinary feet is still winning his minutes by nine points of chance share.

The Physical Game

6-4 and 220, and he plays a heavy, honest game that has not softened. He wins pucks below the goal line, blocks shots, and finishes checks.

16 penalty minutes over 75 games. Fifteen seasons of this and the durability has barely wavered — he has cleared 70 games in eleven of the last twelve.

The Intangibles

The captain, fourteen seasons here, and the single most reliable player in the organisation.

At 37 the projection is a shorter one every year, and the specific thing to watch is the legs — a defensive centre whose value is arriving on time has a cliff rather than a slope. Nothing in last season suggests it has started.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 910 minutes

Expected goals: 55.2%; 92nd pct
Shot attempts: 60%; 99th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 36 for, 34 against. Expected: 42.6 and 34.6.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

84th

Numbers

92nd

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 357 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 79 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

2024-25 · 910 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, 2024-25

The club: CAR took 55.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 55.2% — 0.7 below the club he did it on.
The role: Second line, 910 minutes at five-on-five — 47th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Jordan Martinook	56.0%	49.8%	55.1%
Jaccob Slavin	54.9%	55.5%	55.4%
Brent Burns	52.5%	57.8%	54.3%

56.0% together, 49.8% for him apart and 55.1% for Martinook apart. He was worse away from Martinook, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Martinook 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

157 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 13 of them goals. His median goal came from 12 feet. 56% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 12% from beyond forty.