Josh Morrissey

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

79 games, 12 goals and 25 assists at 23:40 a night, minus-3, sixty-six penalty minutes, 173 shots, six power-play goals and three game-winners. Thirteenth overall in 2013 by Winnipeg, seven seasons, 423 games, 166 points.

Twelve goals is a career high by five, thirty-seven points a career high by six, and 173 shots a career high by fifty-three.

The Finesse Game

8.869 miles per 60 is the 16th-most of the 192 tracked defencemen, at 23:40 a night and 6-0 and 195 pounds.

Forty-one per cent of his points came on the power play, the 92nd percentile among defencemen, off 2:32 a night with the man advantage.

5.55 shots per 60 is the 76th percentile at 6.9 per cent — the 83rd — from a 47-foot median with twelve per cent of his attempts from inside twenty feet.

0.83 even-strength points per 60 is the 34th percentile, which is the number that argues with everything above it: the production is a power-play production.

54.5 per cent of the expected goals is the 33rd-best of all 202 defencemen and 52.3 per cent of the attempts the 74th percentile, out of 53.5 per cent offensive-zone starts.

And his ice went 59-60 against an expectation of 70.41-58.83. Eleven and a half short in front — the 8th-largest shortfall of the 644 skaters in this edition who played four hundred five-on-five minutes — and a goal and a half more against.

Two Winnipeg men are in the eight largest shortfalls in the league. He is one and Adam Lowry is the other.

The Physical Game

6-0 and 195 pounds, and sixty-six penalty minutes in seventy-nine games — a career high, and 214 across 423 games.

4.82 hits per 60 is the 60th percentile and 3.34 blocks the 22nd, against 0:57 a night short-handed at the 27th. He does not kill, and for a defenceman playing the 89th percentile of minutes that is a real exemption.

0.64 penalties drawn per 60 is the 82nd percentile against 0.90 taken at the 75th.

The Intangibles

21.7 mph is the 37th percentile among the 192 tracked defencemen and 1.5 bursts over twenty miles an hour per 60 the 49th. The top end is ordinary and the mileage is not, which is a skating profile the record can describe and cannot explain: he covers more ground than almost anybody at his position without ever being fast.

With Dylan DeMelo he took 56.2 per cent of the attempts across 1,293 — the largest pairing on the club. Morrissey apart from him was 52.9, DeMelo apart from him 50.8. Both men are better together, which is the rarer finding.

He is 27, thirteenth overall in 2013, 6-0 and 195 pounds, with 166 points in 423 games. He plays the minutes, he covers the ground and he takes the power play. The even-strength point rate and the eleven and a half goals are why the season reads worse than the player.