This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Justin Faulk
St. Louis Blues Defense
Sixteen goals from a 46-foot median — the 97th-percentile shooting percentage among 202 defencemen.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011-12 | CAR | 66 | 8 | 14 | 22 | -16 | 29 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 101 | 7.9 | 22:51 |
| 2012-13 | CAR | 38 | 5 | 10 | 15 | +1 | 15 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 76 | 6.6 | 24:00 |
| 2013-14 | CAR | 76 | 5 | 27 | 32 | -9 | 37 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 152 | 3.3 | 23:25 |
| 2014-15 | CAR | 82 | 15 | 34 | 49 | -19 | 30 | 7 | 2 | 4 | 238 | 6.3 | 24:26 |
| 2015-16 | CAR | 64 | 16 | 21 | 37 | -22 | 27 | 12 | 0 | 4 | 184 | 8.7 | 24:03 |
| 2016-17 | CAR | 75 | 17 | 20 | 37 | -18 | 32 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 225 | 7.6 | 23:08 |
| 2017-18 | CAR | 76 | 8 | 23 | 31 | -26 | 48 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 211 | 3.8 | 22:16 |
| 2018-19 | CAR | 82 | 11 | 24 | 35 | +9 | 47 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 217 | 5.1 | 22:25 |
| 2019-20 | STL | 69 | 5 | 11 | 16 | -3 | 32 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 147 | 3.4 | 20:34 |
| 2020-21 | STL | 56 | 7 | 18 | 25 | +11 | 35 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 117 | 6.0 | 24:16 |
| 2021-22 | STL | 76 | 16 | 31 | 47 | +41 | 43 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 167 | 9.6 | 23:12 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 760 | 113 | 233 | 346 | -51 | 375 | 43 | 3 | 28 | 1835 | 6.2 | 23:05 |
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
76 games, 16 goals and 31 assists at 23:12 a night, plus-41, forty-three penalty minutes, 167 shots. One of the sixteen came on the power play. Thirty-seventh overall in 2010 by Carolina — the second round — eleven seasons, 760 games, 346 points.
The Finesse Game
Sixteen goals from 167 shots is 9.6 per cent, the 97th percentile among the 202 defencemen who played forty games — off a 46-foot median at the 11th percentile, with sixty-four per cent of them coming from beyond forty feet. He converted at nearly ten per cent from the point.
Fifteen of the sixteen came at even strength. A defenceman scoring sixteen goals from the blue line at nearly ten per cent is the single loudest piece of evidence for what St Louis did last season, and the club finished 2nd in the league in finishing.
1.59 even-strength points per 60 is the 94th percentile and 5.68 shots per 60 the 78th.
49.5 per cent of the expected goals is the 49th percentile and 49.2 per cent of the attempts the 43rd — the best pair on this blue line — out of 58.8 per cent offensive-zone starts, the 76th-highest of 652 skaters.
His ice went 93-52 against an expectation of 62.45-63.62. Thirty and a half more goals in front than the model asked and eleven and a half fewer against, which is the largest two-way deviation of any defenceman in this chapter and produced the plus-41.
The Physical Game
6-0 and 208 pounds, 5.07 hits per 60 at the 63rd percentile and 3.44 blocks at the 26th.
0.27 penalties drawn per 60 is the 26th percentile against 0.54 taken at the 39th.
The Intangibles
His shot is 101.5 mph, the 6th-hardest of the 192 defencemen the tracking measures. Colton Parayko’s 102.0 is the hardest of all 192, so this blue line owns two of the six most violent shots at the position in hockey — and between them they scored twenty-two goals.
22.0 mph is the 55th percentile and 2.4 bursts over twenty miles an hour per 60 the 76th, against 8.15 miles per 60 at the 17th — the least ground covered per minute of any regular on this blue line.
He is 30, with 346 points in 760 games across eleven seasons. The shot, the production and the soft chair he was given are all real. A plus-41 built on forty-two goals of two-way deviation is not, and the number to carry into next season is the 49.5 per cent, not the sixteen.
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.
- hard-shot· beats a goaltender from range
6 of 130 attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 4.6%, 96th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.21) · 16% keep it
- workhorse· carries the load at even strength
19:36 a game at five-on-five, 93rd percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
- sheltered· is started in the attacking end
59% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 93rd percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,490 minutes
- Expected goals
- 49.5%
- 53rd pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.2%
- 48th 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: 93 for, 52 against. Expected: 62.5 and 63.6.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 38 points above where the numbers do. 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 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 72 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, 2021-22 · 76 games
- Top speed
- 22.0 mph
- 69th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.92 a game
- Distance
- 3.15 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 101.5 mph
- 98th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.5
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.4
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
2021-22 · 1490 minutes at five-on-five
- Torey Krug46%
- Nick Leddy16%
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, 2021-22
- The club
- STL took 48.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.5% — 1.3 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 1,490 minutes at five-on-five — 97th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Torey Krug | 48.8% | 50.2% | 47.3% |
| Robert Thomas | 49.1% | 49.8% | 54.0% |
| Vladimir Tarasenko | 47.4% | 50.5% | 49.3% |
48.8% together, 50.2% for him apart and 47.3% for Krug 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
203 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 16 of them goals. His median goal came from 36 feet. 10% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 64% from beyond forty.