This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Mason Appleton
Winnipeg Jets Center
The 55th-hardest chair of 652 skaters, and the 27th-softest shot of 365 forwards.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | WPG | 36 | 3 | 7 | 10 | +9 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 29 | 10.3 | 8:12 |
| 2019-20 | WPG | 46 | 5 | 3 | 8 | -9 | 20 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 55 | 9.1 | 11:10 |
| 2020-21 | WPG | 56 | 12 | 13 | 25 | +11 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 88 | 13.6 | 14:25 |
| 2021-22 | SEA/WPG | 68 | 8 | 13 | 21 | -1 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 98 | 8.2 | 14:53 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 206 | 28 | 36 | 64 | +10 | 68 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 270 | 10.4 | 12:45 |
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
68 games for Seattle and Winnipeg, 8 goals and 13 assists at 14:53 a night, minus-1, thirty penalty minutes, 98 shots and three game-winners. Hundred-and-sixty-eighth overall in 2015 by Winnipeg — the sixth round — four seasons, 206 games, 64 points.
The Finesse Game
He started 36.8 per cent of his end-zone shifts in the attacking end, the 55th-lowest of the 652 skaters who took two hundred end-zone starts, and gave the puck away 0.771 times per 60 — the 23rd-fewest of 393 forwards.
That is the whole player: the hardest chair on this roster and one of the tidiest pairs of hands in the league.
5.81 shots per 60 is the 23rd percentile at 8.2 per cent, from a 25-foot median with forty-nine per cent of his attempts from inside twenty feet.
1.36 even-strength points per 60 is the 24th percentile and none of his twenty-one points came on the power play — none in 206 career games.
0.889 takeaways per 60 is the 22nd-fewest of the 393, which sits oddly beside the giveaway rate and is the reading the record cannot settle: he does not lose the puck and he does not take it either.
47.8 per cent of the expected goals is the 32nd percentile and 49.5 per cent of the attempts the 45th, which out of that chair is a genuinely good pair of shares.
His ice went 32-36 against an expectation of 33.15-36.15 — a goal short in front and level behind.
The Physical Game
6-2 and 196 pounds, and thirty penalty minutes in sixty-eight games.
3.79 hits per 60 is the 48th percentile and 1.19 blocks the 24th, against 0:46 a night short-handed at the 55th.
0.65 penalties drawn per 60 and 0.65 taken, which is a net of nothing.
The Intangibles
His shot is 82.8 mph, the 27th-softest of the 365 forwards the tracking measures.
22.8 mph is the 74th percentile, 7.6 bursts over twenty miles an hour per 60 the 74th and 9.71 miles per 60 the 56th. Perfectly ordinary legs and a shot among the softest in the league.
He is 26, a sixth-round pick, selected by Seattle in the expansion draft and traded back to the club that drafted him. The zone starts, the giveaway rate and a 47.8 per cent chance share out of them are a real third-line job done properly. Eight goals from ninety-eight shots off that shot speed is the ceiling, and it is not going up.
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
37% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 10th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
“He started 36.8 per cent of his end-zone shifts in the attacking end, the 55th-lowest of the 652 skaters who took two hundred end-zone starts, and gave the puck away 0.771 times per 60 — the 23rd-fewest of 393 forwards.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 918 minutes
- Expected goals
- 47.8%
- 37th pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.5%
- 50th 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: 32 for, 36 against. Expected: 33.1 and 36.1.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 21 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 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 62 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, 2021-22 · 68 games
- Top speed
- 22.8 mph
- 82nd pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.90 a game
- Distance
- 2.41 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 82.8 mph
- 30th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.0
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.1
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
2021-22 with SEA · 657 minutes at five-on-five
- Yanni Gourde43%
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, 2021-22
- The club
- WPG took 50.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.8% — 2.3 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 918 minutes at five-on-five — 52nd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yanni Gourde | 43.8% | 49.4% | 51.6% |
| Adam Larsson | 43.3% | 49.6% | 46.7% |
| Vince Dunn | 37.1% | 50.5% | 50.1% |
43.8% together, 49.4% for him apart and 51.6% for Gourde apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.
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
132 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 8 of them goals. His median goal came from 23 feet. 41% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 23% from beyond forty.