This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Juuso Välimäki
Arizona Coyotes Defense
A waiver claim who led the club's defencemen in five-on-five share and scored thirty assists.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | CGY | 24 | 1 | 2 | 3 | -2 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 28 | 3.6 | 15:29 |
| 2020-21 | CGY | 49 | 2 | 9 | 11 | -2 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 72 | 2.8 | 15:26 |
| 2021-22 | CGY | 9 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 0.0 | 15:42 |
| 2022-23 | ARI | 78 | 4 | 30 | 34 | -10 | 59 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 93 | 4.3 | 18:11 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 160 | 7 | 43 | 50 | -14 | 107 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 204 | 3.4 | 16:48 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 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
4 goals and 30 assists in 78 games — 34 points at 18:11 a night, minus-10, on 93 shots and 59 penalty minutes.
51.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,197 minutes, the 65th percentile — the best of any regular defenceman on the club. His ice went 53-58 against an expectation of 48.51-45.21, which means the chances were better than the result: thirteen more goals conceded than the model predicted, and that is goaltending rather than defending.
He was claimed off waivers from Calgary in October and finished second among the club’s defencemen in points.
The Finesse Game
93 attempts at a median of 42 feet, 54 per cent from beyond 40 and 17 per cent from inside 20, converting at 4.3 per cent. There is no shot to speak of and 7 goals in 160 career games says so.
Thirty assists is the season. He runs a second power-play unit competently, he makes the simple first pass under pressure, and 43 career assists against 7 goals is an unusually lopsided ratio even for a defenceman.
The Physical Game
6-2 and 201, and he defends more with body position than with force — 59 penalty minutes in 78 games is ordinary.
The skating is the flaw and it is why Calgary gave up: 21.8 mph at the 26th percentile and 0.4 bursts over twenty a game at the 17th. He does not recover when he is beaten, which is survivable at eighteen minutes and would not be at twenty-two.
The Intangibles
Sixteenth overall in 2017, a torn ACL before he ever established himself, and then four seasons of being not quite good enough for Calgary.
He is 25 and had the best season of his career the moment somebody gave him regular minutes. That is either a late-developing first-round pick finally arriving or a good third-pairing defenceman flattered by a bad club, and this season is the one that decides which — the underlying number says the first.
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.
- durable· was available
78 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
51.8% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 42.8% for his club in the minutes he sat: +9.0, 97th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
“he makes the simple first pass under pressure”
“He does not recover when he is beaten, which is survivable at eighteen minutes and would not be at twenty-two.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 1,197 minutes
- Expected goals
- 51.8%
- 65th pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.9%
- 52nd 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: 53 for, 58 against. Expected: 48.5 and 45.2.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 24 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 58 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 60 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
2022-23 · 1197 minutes at five-on-five
- J.J. Moser28%
- Joshua Brown18%
- Troy Stecher15%
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, 2022-23
- The club
- ARI took 45.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.8% — 6.3 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 1,197 minutes at five-on-five — 82nd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clayton Keller | 55.3% | 48.4% | 44.1% |
| Barrett Hayton | 55.5% | 49.1% | 47.3% |
| Nick Schmaltz | 55.1% | 49.8% | 47.3% |
55.3% together, 48.4% for him apart and 44.1% for Keller 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
131 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 15 feet. 17% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 54% from beyond forty.