Luke Glendening

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

9 goals and 7 assists in 82 games — 16 points, a minus-17 and 15 penalty minutes at 14:07 a night, the 35th percentile. 2:13 a night short-handed is the 96th percentile among forwards.

45.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 941 minutes, the 16th percentile. His ice went 19-33 against an expectation of 29.42-35.1 — ten fewer goals for than the chances promised.

Six playoff games without a point.

The Finesse Game

0.86 even-strength points per 60 is the 14th-lowest of the 393 qualified forwards, and not one of his sixteen points came on the power play — 0 per cent, the bottom of the league. 0:02 a night on the man advantage.

6.01 shots per 60 is the 26th percentile and nine goals on 116 is 7.8 per cent, the 18th. 62 per cent of his shots came from the slot, the 86th percentile, at a median of 19 feet, the 12th — he shoots from the right place and there is nothing behind it.

0.726 giveaways per 60 is the 19th-lowest of the 393 qualified forwards. He does not lose the puck, largely because he does not hold it: 0.881 takeaways per 60 is the 21st-lowest. Both ends of the ledger are near empty and that is the job.

The Physical Game

5-11 and 190.

9.28 hits per 60 is the 53rd-most of the 393 qualified forwards and 3.06 blocks is the 92nd percentile. At fourteen minutes a night, against the other side’s best, on the kill.

The skating file is the interesting one. 8.81 miles per 60 is the 10th-lowest of the 365 forwards the tracking covers — and 12.5 bursts over 20 mph per 60 is the 22nd-most. Almost nobody in the league covers less ground and almost nobody sprints more often. That is the measurement of very short shifts taken at a dead run, which is exactly what a fourth-line penalty-killer is for and is not something the eye would have separated from “he works hard”.

0.31 penalties taken per 60 is the 11th percentile and drawn minus taken is plus-0.52, the 88th. Fifteen minutes in eighty-two games from a man who hits that often is the finding.

The Intangibles

Undrafted, and 636 NHL games at 33 across nine seasons, eight of them in Detroit.

A career minus-64 on clubs that lost a great deal, and a minus-17 last season on one that did not.

With Radek Faksa he took 42.9 per cent of the chances over 795 attempts. That is the worst pair on the roster and it was the checking line by design — the chance share of a checking line is supposed to be bad, and forty-three per cent is worse than supposed.

At 33 the arithmetic is unforgiving. The hits, the blocks, the kill and the discipline are all real; the chance share says he loses the argument every night, and there is no year coming in which that improves.