This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Marcus Pettersson

Six-foot-five and 174 pounds — the lightest man in this edition for his height — and 78 per cent of his attempts from beyond 40 feet.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2017-18	ANA	22	1	3	4	+5	6	0	0	0	16	6.3	13:37
2018-19	ANA/PIT	84	2	23	25	+17	66	1	0	0	87	2.3	16:41
2019-20	PIT	69	2	20	22	+9	35	0	0	0	79	2.5	19:24
2020-21	PIT	47	2	7	9	+8	22	0	0	0	46	4.3	16:29
2021-22	PIT	72	2	17	19	+8	38	0	0	0	83	2.4	15:39
2022-23	PIT	68	1	23	24	+4	58	0	0	0	96	1.0	20:35
2023-24	PIT	82	4	26	30	+28	44	0	0	1	106	3.8	22:40
2024-25	PIT/VAN	78	4	25	29	+6	45	0	0	1	70	5.7	21:42
2025-26 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	522	18	144	162	+85	314	1	0	2	583	3.1	18:57

This Season So Far

The 2025-26 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 25 assists in 78 games across Pittsburgh and Vancouver — 29 points at 21:42 a night, plus-6, with 45 penalty minutes.

52.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 73rd percentile, across 1,366 minutes — the most on the roster. His ice went 70-71 against an expectation of 62.72-57.16 — six goals of scoring missing and level against.

The Finesse Game

70 attempts in 78 games at a median of 58 feet with 78 per cent from beyond 40 and 5 per cent from inside 20, and 4 goals. 18 goals in 522 career games. He does not shoot.

25 assists is a career high and it comes entirely from the breakout. The first pass is early, short and correct, and he is comfortable under a forecheck in a way that most defensive defencemen are not.

The Physical Game

6-5 and 174 pounds, which is a remarkable set of numbers — he is among the tallest defencemen in the league and among the lightest. He defends almost entirely with reach: he takes the puck with his stick before contact is required.

45 penalty minutes in 78 games is a moderate rate. He does not clear a crease by force and he is not going to move a heavy forward off it, and the reach means he does not often have to.

The Intangibles

A second-round pick of Anaheim in 2014 and 522 games and 162 points across three organisations, six seasons of it in Pittsburgh.

He was acquired at the deadline in March with Drew O’Connor and signed a six-year extension immediately. He is 29 and he is now the second-most-used defenceman on the club.

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
52.3% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 46.6% for his club in the minutes he sat: +5.7, 92nd percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
defends-with-reacha strength· takes the puck before the contact happens
“He defends almost entirely with reach: he takes the puck with his stick before contact is required.”
transitiona strength· carries it out; gains the line under control
“The first pass is early, short and correct, and he is comfortable under a forecheck in a way that most defensive defencemen are not.”
playmakera strength· passes up the shot a scorer takes
“**25 assists is a career high and it comes entirely from the breakout.**”
clears-the-creasehe lacks it· moves grown men off the front of his net
“He does not clear a crease by force and he is not going to move a heavy forward off it, and the reach means he does not often have to.”
hard-to-movehe lacks it· cannot be shifted from where he decides to stand
“He does not clear a crease by force and he is not going to move a heavy forward off it, and the reach means he does not often have to.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,366 minutes

Expected goals: 52.3%; 72nd pct
Shot attempts: 50.8%; 62nd pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 70 for, 71 against. Expected: 62.7 and 57.2.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

30th

Numbers

72nd

The numbers rank him 42 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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 69 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, 2024-25 · 78 games

Top speed: 21.5 mph; 42nd pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.14 a game
Distance: 2.94 miles a game
Hardest shot: 91.2 mph; 54th pct

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

2024-25 with PIT · 880 minutes at five-on-five

Erik Karlsson53%
Kris Letang32%

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, 2024-25

The club: VAN took 49.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 52.3% — 3.2 above the club he did it on.
The role: Second pair, 1,366 minutes at five-on-five — 94th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Erik Karlsson	54.1%	51.2%	46.2%
Sidney Crosby	59.0%	49.7%	48.5%
Rickard Rakell	58.4%	50.3%	49.5%

54.1% together, 51.2% for him apart and 46.2% for Karlsson apart. Karlsson was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Karlsson 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

126 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 59 feet. 6% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 78% from beyond forty.