Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2025-26 report →

24

Mathew Dumba

Dallas Stars Defense

Seventh overall in 2012, 487 penalty minutes in 674 games, and a chance share in the 43rd percentile.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2013-14MIN13112-52100128.312:27
2014-15MIN588816+1323202869.315:01
2015-16MIN81101626+1386031526.616:50
2016-17MIN76112334+15596011318.420:20
2017-18MIN82143650+15412041768.023:49
2018-19MIN32121022-5216019312.923:23
2019-20MIN6961824-7411011673.622:30
2020-21MIN5161521+146101896.722:17
2021-22MIN5772027+9471011166.023:06
2022-23MIN7941014-881002994.021:17
2023-24ARI/TBL764812-1888000864.719:44
2024-25 so far
Career67483165248+114872601612076.920:31

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

Seventy-six games in Tampa Bay, 4 goals and 8 assists, 88 penalty minutes, 19:44 a night and minus-18. He took 48.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,252 minutes, the 43rd percentile, and his ice went 63-43 against an expectation of 47.86-50.28.

Fifteen goals of scoring above expectation in one direction and seven fewer against in the other, and a minus-18 anyway. Tampa Bay had the worst goaltending in the league last season and that is most of the explanation.

The Finesse Game

Eighty-six shots at a median of 48 feet with 17 per cent from inside 20 — a higher share of close attempts than most defencemen take, and he activates into the slot more than his role suggests. Four went in.

Twenty-six career power-play goals and 83 in 674 games is the record of a defenceman whose shot was once a genuine weapon in Minnesota. It has not been one for three seasons. One hundred and sixty-five career assists.

The Physical Game

He finishes his checks hard and 487 penalty minutes in 674 games is the record of a defenceman who initiates. At 6-0 and 191 he is not big and he hits like a much heavier man.

Eighty-eight penalty minutes in 76 games is a high rate and a fair share of it is taken after being beaten to a spot. He clears the front of his own net.

The Intangibles

Seventh overall in 2012 out of Regina, ten seasons in Minnesota, and then a season split between Arizona and Tampa Bay. He is 30 and joining his fourth organisation in two years.

Dallas signed him to be the third-pair defenceman who hits people, which is a long way from what a seventh pick is drafted for and a perfectly sensible use of him.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,252 minutes

Expected goals
48.8%
43rd pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
47%
26th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 63 for, 43 against. Expected: 47.9 and 50.3.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
40th
Numbers
43rd

The two rank him within 3 points of one another. 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.

Both bars are percentiles among the 201 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.

Usual linemates

2023-24 with ARI · 953 minutes at five-on-five

  • Travis Dermottnow EDM36%
  • J.J. Mosernow TBL29%
  • Juuso Välimäkinow UTA11%

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
TBL took 50.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 48.8% — 1.7 below the club he did it on.
The role
1,252 minutes at five-on-five — 86th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Travis Dermott43.5%50.6%48.6%
Nick Bjugstad43.4%50.4%49.1%
J.J. Moser51.4%47.9%49.8%

43.5% together, 50.6% for him apart and 48.6% for Dermott 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

131 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 27 feet. 17% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 64% from beyond forty.