Justin Dowling
New York Rangers Center
35 years old, undrafted, and 152 NHL games spread across nine seasons and four organisations.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-17 | DAL | 9 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 0.0 | 10:28 |
| 2018-19 | DAL | 11 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0.0 | 12:40 |
| 2019-20 | DAL | 29 | 3 | 3 | 6 | -3 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 29 | 10.3 | 10:57 |
| 2020-21 | DAL | 27 | 1 | 4 | 5 | -4 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 27 | 3.7 | 11:04 |
| 2021-22 | VAN | 22 | 2 | 2 | 4 | -3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 17 | 11.8 | 9:35 |
| 2023-24 | NJD | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | -2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 33.3 | 10:32 |
| 2024-25 | NJD | 52 | 2 | 5 | 7 | -6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 34 | 5.9 | 10:13 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 152 | 9 | 17 | 26 | -22 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 130 | 6.9 | 10:37 |
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
2 goals and 5 assists in 52 games for New Jersey — 7 points, minus-6, at 10:13 a night on 6 penalty minutes.
34 shots at 5.9 per cent. It was comfortably the longest NHL season of his career and it happened at 34.
The Finesse Game
There is nothing here that will produce offence at this level and there never was. 26 points in 152 career games is the record, and the shot is a fourth-line shot taken because somebody has to.
What he does have is a reliable read of where the puck is going. He is in the correct place, he makes the simple play, and he does not turn it over in his own end. That is a genuine skill and it is the reason he keeps getting NHL games at an age when nobody gets them.
The Physical Game
5-11 and 178, and there is no physical game to speak of. He does not win a wall, he is not going to the front of the net, and 6 penalty minutes in 52 games says he is not engaging anybody.
He kills penalties, he takes a defensive-zone draw, and he blocks shots. That is the entire physical contribution and it is done positionally rather than by force.
The Intangibles
Undrafted, more than a decade of professional hockey, and a long American League career with a captaincy in it.
He is a thirteenth forward, an American League leader, and an emergency in New York. That is a real job, it is the last one, and he has earned every game of it.
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.
- perimeter· shoots from the outside, by choice or because he cannot get in
30.0% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 90th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
- disciplined· stays out of the box
0.12 penalty minutes a game over 52, 5th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.75) · 35% keep it
“He is in the correct place, he makes the simple play, and he does not turn it over in his own end.”
“He does not win a wall, he is not going to the front of the net, and 6 penalty minutes in 52 games says he is not engaging anybody.”
“He kills penalties, he takes a defensive-zone draw, and he blocks shots.”
“He kills penalties, he takes a defensive-zone draw, and he blocks shots.”
“He kills penalties, he takes a defensive-zone draw, and he blocks shots.”
“Undrafted, more than a decade of professional hockey, and a long American League career with a captaincy in it.”
“Undrafted, more than a decade of professional hockey, and a long American League career with a captaincy in it.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 503 minutes
- Expected goals
- 46.6%
- 24th pct
- Shot attempts
- 47.4%
- 28th 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: 11 for, 17 against. Expected: 15.5 and 17.8.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 23 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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 57 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, 2024-25 · 52 games
- Top speed
- 21.8 mph
- 31st pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.56 a game
- Distance
- 1.76 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 76.5 mph
- 11th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.2
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 83.9
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
2024-25 with NJD · 503 minutes at five-on-five
- Paul Cotter41%
- Tomas Tataroff the roster39%
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
- NJD took 50.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 46.6% — 4.1 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 503 minutes at five-on-five — 17th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paul Cotter | 51.1% | 43.7% | 47.2% |
| Tomas Tatar | 45.6% | 47.3% | 50.3% |
| Brenden Dillon | 45.5% | 47.3% | 50.3% |
51.1% together, 43.7% for him apart and 47.2% for Cotter apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
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
60 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 1 of them goals. His median goal came from 30 feet. 33% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 30% from beyond forty.