Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2025-26 report →

4

Justin Holl

Detroit Red Wings Defense

No goals in thirty-eight games, eleven in 323, and a career plus-66 that nobody expected.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2017-18TOR2202+500012100.017:22
2018-19TOR11011-5200060.012:29
2019-20TOR6821618+1343000892.318:31
2020-21TOR5521820+1625001573.521:04
2021-22TOR6932023+1441011644.720:12
2022-23TOR8021618+1539001603.320:14
2023-24DET38055+822000140.015:05
2024-25 so far
Career323117687+661720142923.819:07

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

Thirty-eight games, no goals and 5 assists, 15:05 a night and plus-8. He took 44.1 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 529 minutes, the 15th percentile, and his ice went 22-20 against an expectation of 18.77-23.83.

A plus-8 in 38 games on a club that conceded 274 goals, and a chance share in the 15th percentile underneath it. The first season of a Detroit contract that has not gone well.

The Finesse Game

Fourteen shots in 38 games and none went in. Eleven goals in 323 career games at 3.77 per cent is one of the lowest conversion rates any defenceman carries.

Seventy-six career assists is a better number than the goals suggest and the first pass is quick and accurate. He does not carry the puck out.

The Physical Game

He is 6-4 and 194 and light for the height. Twenty-two penalty minutes in 38 games is a moderate rate.

He defends the rush with reach and takes away the inside lane early, which is the entire defensive game. He does not win the wall and does not clear a crease at that weight.

The Intangibles

A second-round pick in 2010 out of Tonka Bay, four years at Minnesota, five in the minors, and a first regular job at 26. He is plus-66 across 323 games, which is an unusual number for a third-pair defenceman.

He is 32 and fifth or sixth on a blue line that just lost two men. Thirty-eight games is not a season and the club needs more than that from him.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 529 minutes

Expected goals
44.1%
15th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
45.4%
18th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 22 for, 20 against. Expected: 18.8 and 23.8.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
7th
Numbers
15th

The two rank him within 8 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 201 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 53 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.

Usual linemates

2023-24 · 529 minutes at five-on-five

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
DET took 45.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 44.1% — 1.8 below the club he did it on.
The role
529 minutes at five-on-five — 19th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Shayne Gostisbehere43.4%44.4%48.0%
Olli Määttä41.5%45.0%50.2%
Joe Veleno49.4%42.1%44.7%

43.4% together, 44.4% for him apart and 48.0% for Gostisbehere apart. Gostisbehere was better away from him while his own share held, which is a mark against him more 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

27 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 0 of them goals. 4% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 67% from beyond forty.