This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Justin Barron
Montreal Canadiens Defense
Twenty-fifth overall in 2020, seven goals in 48 games from the blue line, and 18:38 a night at 22.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-22 | COL/MTL | 7 | 1 | 1 | 2 | -3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 13 | 7.7 | 17:11 |
| 2022-23 | MTL | 39 | 4 | 11 | 15 | -2 | 20 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 40 | 10.0 | 16:18 |
| 2023-24 | MTL | 48 | 7 | 6 | 13 | -3 | 16 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 60 | 11.7 | 18:38 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 94 | 12 | 18 | 30 | -8 | 36 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 113 | 10.6 | 17:33 |
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
48 games, 7 goals and 6 assists for 13 points, 1 on the power play, 16 penalty minutes, 18:38 a night and minus-3. He took 49.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 787 minutes, the 46th percentile, and his ice went 27-28 against an expectation of 32.76-34.10.
Six goals of scoring that did not arrive and six fewer conceded than the chances called for. A 46th percentile on a club that was 26th in chance share is the best mark of any defenceman on the roster.
The Finesse Game
92 attempts at a median of 42 feet with 53 per cent from beyond 40 and 15 per cent from inside 20, converted at 11.7 per cent.
18 career assists in 94 games. Seven goals from a third-pair right-hander in forty-eight games is a genuine shot from the point, and it is the clearest thing he does. He skates the puck out and the reads are still a beat slow.
The Physical Game
He is 6-2 and 198 and defends with reach rather than force.
16 penalty minutes in 48 games is a low rate. He does not clear the crease, does not win many walls, and the defensive half of the game is where the work is.
The Intangibles
Twenty-fifth overall in 2020 by Colorado, out of Halifax, three seasons across two organisations, and 30 points in 94 games. Montreal acquired him for Artturi Lehkonen at the 2022 deadline.
He is 22 and is the only right-handed defenceman on this roster under 30. That fact alone will keep him in the lineup while the reads catch up.
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.
- slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
21.7% of his attempts in the slot, 99th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
“He is 6-2 and 198 and defends with reach rather than force.”
“He does not clear the crease, does not win many walls, and the defensive half of the game is where the work is.”
“He does not clear the crease, does not win many walls, and the defensive half of the game is where the work is.”
“He skates the puck out and the reads are still a beat slow.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 787 minutes
- Expected goals
- 49%
- 46th pct
- Shot attempts
- 46.6%
- 25th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 27 for, 28 against. Expected: 32.8 and 34.1.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 19 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 64 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 · 48 games
- Top speed
- 22.9 mph
- 91st pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.00 a game
- Distance
- 2.68 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 87.1 mph
- 27th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.7
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.2
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 · 787 minutes at five-on-five
- Kaiden Guhle45%
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
- MTL took 46.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.0% — 2.9 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- 787 minutes at five-on-five — 37th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kaiden Guhle | 49.4% | 48.7% | 43.5% |
| Nick Suzuki | 54.9% | 45.7% | 48.6% |
| Cole Caufield | 55.2% | 45.9% | 47.5% |
49.4% together, 48.7% for him apart and 43.5% for Guhle apart. Guhle was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Guhle 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
92 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 7 of them goals. His median goal came from 25 feet. 15% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 53% from beyond forty.