This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2023-24 report →
Matt Benning
San Jose Sharks Defense
No goals on sixty-one shots — the second-longest such run in the league — and twenty more goals against than the model asked.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-17 | EDM | 62 | 3 | 12 | 15 | +8 | 29 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 69 | 4.3 | 16:37 |
| 2017-18 | EDM | 73 | 6 | 15 | 21 | +5 | 49 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 111 | 5.4 | 17:17 |
| 2018-19 | EDM | 70 | 5 | 12 | 17 | +11 | 33 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 94 | 5.3 | 14:57 |
| 2019-20 | EDM | 43 | 1 | 7 | 8 | +8 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 38 | 2.6 | 13:14 |
| 2020-21 | NSH | 53 | 1 | 3 | 4 | -1 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 43 | 2.3 | 16:20 |
| 2021-22 | NSH | 65 | 0 | 11 | 11 | -24 | 39 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 61 | 0.0 | 16:20 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 366 | 16 | 60 | 76 | +7 | 195 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 416 | 3.9 | 15:57 |
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
65 games for Nashville, 0 goals and 11 assists at 16:20 a night, minus-24, thirty-nine penalty minutes, 61 shots. One hundred and seventy-fifth overall in 2012 by Boston — the sixth round — six seasons, 366 games, 76 points.
The Finesse Game
Sixty-one shots and no goals. Only Erik Brannstrom in Ottawa took more attempts without scoring — eighty-six — so this is the second-longest goalless run of any skater in the league.
3.45 shots per 60 is the 24th percentile from a 52-foot median with ten per cent from the slot, on a 94.4 mph shot at the 47th. There is nothing wrong with the shot and nothing at all happened with it.
0.72 even-strength points per 60 is the 25th percentile. 0.45 takeaways per 60 is the 6th percentile.
50.0 per cent of the expected goals is the 51st percentile and 49.5 per cent of the attempts the 46th — genuinely middling numbers, out of 37.0 per cent offensive-zone starts, the 57th-lowest of the 652 skaters who took two hundred end-zone starts.
That is one of the sixty hardest chairs in hockey and the shares came out at league average, which is a real result.
And then the goals. His ice went 26-53 against an expectation of 33.04-32.98. Seven short in front and twenty more against than the model asked, on a club whose crease rated 18th in the league. A minus-24 out of shares that were exactly league average is the sort of gap the record cannot close.
The Physical Game
4.63 hits per 60 is the 57th percentile and 3.79 blocks the 38th at 6-1 and 220 pounds.
0.79 penalties drawn per 60 is the 92nd percentile against 1.02 taken, and thirty-nine penalty minutes came out of sixty-five games.
The Intangibles
2:11 short-handed a night is the 69th percentile among defencemen, on the club that spent more time a man short than any other in the league.
21.3 mph is the 16th percentile and 1.0 bursts per 60 the 28th, against 8.51 miles per 60 at the 56th. Slow, rarely at speed, ordinary ground covered.
He is 28 with 366 NHL games across six seasons and a career plus-7. The chair, the kill and a pair of league-average shares underneath the hardest deployment on his club are three real things. No goals on sixty-one shots and twenty goals of on-ice deficit are the two the record will not let past.
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, 4th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
“2:11 short-handed a night is the 69th percentile among defencemen, on the club that spent more time a man short than any other in the league.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 911 minutes
- Expected goals
- 50%
- 56th 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: 26 for, 53 against. Expected: 33.0 and 33.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 30 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 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 55 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 · 65 games
- Top speed
- 21.3 mph
- 38th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.26 a game
- Distance
- 2.32 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 94.4 mph
- 64th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.5
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.4
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 NSH · 911 minutes at five-on-five
- Roman Josi16%
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
- NSH took 49.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.0% — 0.4 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 911 minutes at five-on-five — 51st percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mark Borowiecki | 53.9% | 48.1% | 47.7% |
| Mikael Granlund | 47.3% | 51.1% | 50.1% |
| Matt Duchene | 50.9% | 49.7% | 52.8% |
53.9% together, 48.1% for him apart and 47.7% for Borowiecki apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
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
77 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 0 of them goals. 5% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 78% from beyond forty.