Armchair Hockey Scout

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2024-25 edition Ask a direct question about this edition of the book — who, how many, how common, which group more — and it is answered with a table computed on this page from the edition’s index: the season line, height and age, the on-ice percentiles, the grades and the traits read out of every report. Ask for a view on named players — what a comparison comes down to, what makes a man — and you get the book’s reading of their own pages, and only those. The model turns your question into a query and phrases the result, or reads the pages it is handed; it never originates a figure, and an answer carrying a figure that is on neither the table nor the pages is withheld. It does not forecast, and it says so when a question is outside what the book holds.

Tables are computed on this page from the 2024-25 edition’s index; readings rest on the players’ own pages; the model never counts. Twenty questions an hour.

44

Marc-Edouard Vlasic

San Jose Sharks Defense

One thousand two hundred and ninety-six games, every one of them for San Jose.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2006-07SJS8132326+1318200664.522:12
2007-08SJS8221214-1224100722.821:37
2008-09SJS8263036+15423011045.823:54
2009-10SJS6431316+2133100744.022:05
2010-11SJS8041418+14180021163.520:52
2011-12SJS8241923+11400011193.423:09
2012-13SJS48347+529000595.120:49
2013-14SJS8151924+31380101383.620:43
2014-15SJS7091423+1223003989.222:07
2015-16SJS6783139+15482001166.923:08
2016-17SJS7562228+4351021444.221:14
2017-18SJS81112132+9341021616.822:33
2018-19SJS7232225-6100001003.021:03
2019-20SJS7051015-1010011746.820:18
2020-21SJS51156-88000372.717:31
2021-22SJS7531114-2218000634.815:13
2022-23SJS7811718-1416000671.517:28
2023-24SJS576612-2726001728.316:17
2024-25 so far—————————————
Career—129683293376+514701121316804.920:49

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

57 games, 6 goals and 6 assists for 12 points, none on the power play, 26 penalty minutes, 16:17 a night and minus-27. He took 39.2 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 841 minutes, the 8th percentile, and his ice went 25-49 against an expectation of 28.24-43.72.

Three goals of finishing below what the chances were worth and five more conceded than they called for. Six goals at 37 is his highest total since 2017-18, and 8.3 per cent from a career 4.94 per cent shooter is the least likely number on this roster.

The Finesse Game

106 attempts at a median of 52 feet with 68 per cent of them from beyond forty and 10 per cent from inside twenty, 71 of those on goal, converted at 8.3 per cent against a career 4.94 across 1,680 shots.

293 career assists in 1,296 games. The passing was always the quiet part of him — a first touch that put the winger in stride rather than on his heels — and eighteen seasons of it have produced 376 points from a man nobody ever called an offensive defenceman.

The Physical Game

He is 6-1 and 205 and took 26 penalty minutes.

470 career penalty minutes in 1,296 games. He never had the size to move people and never needed it; he took away the passing lane and the angle instead, and at 37 the reading is still there even when the feet are not.

The Intangibles

Thirty-fifth overall in 2005 by San Jose, eighteen seasons, one organisation, and 376 points in 1,296 games.

He has played 1,296 NHL games and every one of them for the same club — the third-longest such run in this edition, behind Alex Ovechkin and Anze Kopitar. A career plus-51 through eighteen seasons, most of the last five of them on clubs that were not competitive.

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

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-minutes· is started in his own end, against the other club's best

    38% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 6th percentile among defencemen

    Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it

  • defends-with-reacha strength· takes the puck before the contact happens

    “He never had the size to move people and never needed it; he took away the passing lane and the angle instead, and at 37 the reading is still there even when the feet are not.”

  • transitiona strength· carries it out; gains the line under control

    “The passing was always the quiet part of him — a first touch that put the winger in stride rather than on his heels — and eighteen seasons of it have produced 376 points from a man nobody ever called an offensive defenceman.”

  • leadershipa strength· the room, and who holds it

    “He has played 1,296 NHL games and every one of them for the same club — the third-longest such run in this edition, behind Alex Ovechkin and Anze Kopitar.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 841 minutes

Expected goals
39.2%
3rd pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
42.4%
6th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 25 for, 49 against. Expected: 28.2 and 43.7.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
43rd
Numbers
3rd

The report ranks him 40 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 — 68 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 · 57 games

Top speed
21.8 mph
53rd pct

fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.7

Bursts over 20 mph
0.26 a game

how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes

Distance
2.21 miles a game

skated, all strengths

Hardest shot
89.1 mph
35th pct

one shot; the league's average best is 90.2

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 · 841 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
SJS took 40.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 39.2% — 1.6 below the club he did it on.
The role
Third pair, 841 minutes at five-on-five — 43rd percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
William Eklund39.4%39.2%44.1%
Fabian Zetterlund39.9%39.0%42.2%
Luke Kunin27.2%43.5%39.0%

39.4% together, 39.2% for him apart and 44.1% for Eklund apart. Eklund 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

106 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 6 of them goals. His median goal came from 43 feet. 10% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 68% from beyond forty.