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Josh Morrissey

A defenceman playing 25 minutes a night against the best players in the league and producing while he does it.

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

2015-16	WPG	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0.0	15:54
2016-17	WPG	82	6	14	20	+6	38	1	0	3	99	6.1	19:29
2017-18	WPG	81	7	19	26	+15	47	0	0	0	102	6.9	20:27
2018-19	WPG	59	6	25	31	+9	14	3	1	2	95	6.3	22:24
2019-20	WPG	65	5	26	31	+1	24	1	0	0	120	4.2	22:46
2020-21	WPG	56	4	17	21	-1	25	1	0	0	116	3.5	23:33
2021-22	WPG	79	12	25	37	-3	66	6	0	3	173	6.9	23:40
2022-23	WPG	78	16	60	76	+2	41	2	0	6	172	9.3	24:14
2023-24	WPG	81	10	59	69	+34	44	2	0	1	196	5.1	24:11
2024-25	WPG	80	14	48	62	+17	22	3	0	2	172	8.1	24:23
2025-26	WPG	77	14	41	55	+6	30	2	0	2	146	9.6	24:43
2026-27 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	739	94	334	428	+86	351	21	1	19	1392	6.8	22:57

This Season So Far

The 2026-27 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

14 goals and 41 assists in 77 games for 55 points, plus-6, on 24:43 a night — the heaviest workload on the roster. He played 67 percent of his 5-on-5 time with DeMelo, one of the most settled pairings in the league.

The Finesse Game

The skating is the foundation. He escapes forechecks by turning inside them, joins the rush as a fourth man without getting caught, and recovers when a play turns because he is quicker than the forwards chasing him.

The passing is excellent and it is where most of the offence comes from — long, flat outlets that hit a winger in stride, and a genuine ability to walk the offensive line and find a lane. 14 goals from a defenceman who is not the primary power-play option is a striking number.

He takes chances. Occasionally one costs a goal against, which is the price of a defenceman who creates this much.

The Physical Game

6 feet and 195, which is average, and he defends with position and stick rather than force. He is willing in front of his own net without being able to move a heavy centre out of it, and he takes a great deal of physical punishment for a player his size given the minutes.

The Intangibles

He has been this team’s best defenceman for years without ever winning the awards a player producing at this rate usually attracts, largely because of where he plays.

At 31, with this workload and this style, the next few seasons are the peak. The pairing behind him is unsettled, which makes his availability the single most important variable on this roster.

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

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.

drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
50.0% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 45.6% for his club in the minutes he sat: +4.4, 92nd percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
workhorse· carries the load at even strength
19:51 a game at five-on-five, 98th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
sheltered· is started in the attacking end
62% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 96th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 1,529 minutes

Expected goals: 50%; 55th pct
Shot attempts: 49.6%; 53rd pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 75 for, 58 against. Expected: 62.4 and 62.4.

The eye and the numbers

Sighted

Report

92nd

Numbers

55th

The report ranks him 37 points above where the numbers do. It was written with these numbers on screen and departs from them anyway, which makes the gap a judgment rather than an oversight. 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 656 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 81 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, 2025-26 · 77 games

Top speed: 21.9 mph; 57th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.69 a game
Distance: 3.67 miles a game
Hardest shot: 92.8 mph; 65th 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.

Recent form

Last 20 appearances, 2025-26, oldest first

points in his last 10 games — 2 goals, 4 assists, 22 shots

Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.

Usual linemates

2025-26 · 1529 minutes at five-on-five

Dylan DeMelo67%
Neal Pionk11%

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, 2025-26

The club: WPG took 47.3% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.0% — 2.7 above the club he did it on.
The role: First pair, 1,529 minutes at five-on-five — 98th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Dylan DeMelo	49.8%	50.5%	52.3%
Mark Scheifele	51.3%	48.7%	47.7%
Kyle Connor	51.3%	48.8%	47.5%

49.8% together, 50.5% for him apart and 52.3% for DeMelo 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

220 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 14 of them goals. His median goal came from 38 feet. 8% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 72% from beyond forty.