This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Liam O'Brien
Utah Hockey Club Center
One hundred and fifty-three penalty minutes — more than anybody else in this edition.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-15 | WSH | 13 | 1 | 1 | 2 | +4 | 23 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 6.3 | 7:33 |
| 2016-17 | WSH | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 6:08 |
| 2017-18 | WSH | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 | 6:55 |
| 2020-21 | COL | 12 | 0 | 3 | 3 | +1 | 40 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0.0 | 6:34 |
| 2021-22 | ARI | 39 | 2 | 1 | 3 | +1 | 106 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 36 | 5.6 | 9:29 |
| 2022-23 | ARI | 56 | 3 | 8 | 11 | -5 | 114 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 39 | 7.7 | 11:26 |
| 2023-24 | ARI | 75 | 5 | 9 | 14 | 0 | 153 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 72 | 6.9 | 9:44 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 199 | 11 | 22 | 33 | +1 | 441 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 170 | 6.5 | 9:46 |
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
75 games, 5 goals and 9 assists for 14 points, 153 penalty minutes, 9:44 a night and even. He took 46.7 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 716 minutes, the 30th percentile, and his ice went 27-25 against an expectation of 24.53-28.01.
Two goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and three of goaltending above them. One hundred and fifty-three penalty minutes is the largest total of anybody in this edition.
The Finesse Game
97 attempts at a median of 27 feet with 33 per cent of them from inside twenty and 23 per cent from beyond forty, 69 of those on goal, converted at 6.9 per cent against a career 6.47 across 170 shots.
Eleven career goals and 22 assists in 199 games. There is no offence here and the club is not asking for any; fourteen points in 75 games is more than he has managed in any other season and it is not why he is in the lineup.
The Physical Game
He is 6-1 and 215 and took 153 penalty minutes in 75 games.
441 career penalty minutes in 199 games — more than two minutes a game across seven seasons. He fights, he finishes every check that is available and several that are not, and he takes the retaliation penalty when somebody goes after a teammate.
The Intangibles
Undrafted, seven seasons, and Utah is his third organisation.
A career plus-1 in 199 games from a man nobody drafted. He reached the league at 20, spent six years going up and down, and at 30 has played 131 games in the last two seasons.
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.
- 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.
“He fights, he finishes every check that is available and several that are not, and he takes the retaliation penalty when somebody goes after a teammate.”
“There is no offence here and the club is not asking for any; fourteen points in 75 games is more than he has managed in any other season and it is not why he is in the lineup.”
“A career plus-1 in 199 games from a man nobody drafted.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 716 minutes
- Expected goals
- 46.7%
- 30th pct
- Shot attempts
- 44%
- 13th 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, 25 against. Expected: 24.5 and 28.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 27 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 71 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 · 75 games
- Top speed
- 21.9 mph
- 35th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.92 a game
- Distance
- 1.56 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 81.8 mph
- 24th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.1
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.5
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 with ARI · 716 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
- ARI took 48.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 46.7% — 2.2 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third line, 716 minutes at five-on-five — 32nd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Michael Carcone | 44.1% | 48.3% | 44.5% |
| Jack McBain | 49.0% | 45.2% | 51.1% |
| Alex Kerfoot | 43.2% | 48.5% | 47.4% |
44.1% together, 48.3% for him apart and 44.5% for Carcone apart. He was better away from Carcone, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Carcone.
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
97 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 5 of them goals. His median goal came from 8 feet. 33% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 23% from beyond forty.