This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2025-26 report →
Matt Grzelcyk
Boston Bruins Defense
Five-foot-ten, 180 pounds, a 59.1 per cent chance share at the 98th percentile — and 5 per cent of his shots from inside the slot.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-17 | BOS | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0.0 | 12:29 |
| 2017-18 | BOS | 61 | 3 | 12 | 15 | +21 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 82 | 3.7 | 16:44 |
| 2018-19 | BOS | 66 | 3 | 15 | 18 | +9 | 68 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 90 | 3.3 | 19:08 |
| 2019-20 | BOS | 68 | 4 | 17 | 21 | +15 | 34 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 112 | 3.6 | 18:04 |
| 2020-21 | BOS | 37 | 5 | 15 | 20 | +11 | 22 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 80 | 6.3 | 19:45 |
| 2021-22 | BOS | 73 | 4 | 20 | 24 | +22 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 118 | 3.4 | 18:44 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 307 | 19 | 79 | 98 | +78 | 172 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 486 | 3.9 | 18:21 |
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
4 goals and 20 assists in 73 games — 24 points at 18:44 a night, plus-22, on 118 shots and 24 penalty minutes.
59.1 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,207 minutes, the 98th percentile among defencemen. His ice went 61-38 against an expectation of 53.46-37.03 — nearly eight goals of scoring above what the chances predicted, and the goals against landing exactly where they said.
Sixty-one for and thirty-eight against, from a 5-10 defenceman playing under nineteen minutes. It is the second-best chance share on a blue line that also has Charlie McAvoy on it.
The Finesse Game
20 assists in 73 games and 79 in 307, and everything he does begins with a first pass that is already decided before the puck arrives. He does not carry, he does not hold, and he does not need to: the puck leaves his stick in under a second and it leaves it forward.
118 attempts at a median of 51 feet, and 5 per cent of them from inside the slot — the 4th percentile among defencemen. Four goals at 3.4 per cent conversion. He does not walk the line and he does not shoot to score; the point shot is a way of getting the puck back into the cycle.
1:25 a night of power play at the 70th percentile, with 21 per cent of his points scored on it.
The Physical Game
5-10 and 180, and 1.76 hits per 60 is the 9th percentile among defencemen with 3.64 blocks at the 34th. He defends with position, stick and an early gap, and when a bigger man gets inside him there is nothing he can do about it.
0.18 penalties drawn per 60 is the 13th percentile. Nobody has to foul him because nobody has to take the puck off him — he has already moved it.
Top speed 21.5 mph, the 25th percentile, and 8.40 miles per sixty, the 43rd. He is not fast, which for a defenceman this size is the thing that keeps him at 18 minutes rather than 22.
The Intangibles
Eighty-fifth overall in 2012, out of Boston University and out of Charlestown, and 307 games for the club he grew up watching.
He is 28, on the last year of his contract. A 5-10 defenceman with no shot and no physical game who nonetheless takes 59 per cent of the chances is the kind of player analytics departments fight over and coaches quietly scratch in a playoff series — and Boston has done both of those things to him already.
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.
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
59.1% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 54.9% for his club in the minutes he sat: +4.2, 93rd percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
- sheltered· is started in the attacking end
59% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 91st percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
“20 assists in 73 games and 79 in 307, and everything he does begins with a first pass that is already decided before the puck arrives”
“1.76 hits per 60 is the 9th percentile among defencemen”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,207 minutes
- Expected goals
- 59.1%
- 98th pct
- Shot attempts
- 55.8%
- 91st 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: 61 for, 38 against. Expected: 53.5 and 37.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 65 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 — 57 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 · 73 games
- Top speed
- 21.5 mph
- 45th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.30 a game
- Distance
- 2.62 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 94.5 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 · 1207 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, 2021-22
- The club
- BOS took 56.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 59.1% — 2.9 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 1,207 minutes at five-on-five — 86th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brandon Carlo | 54.4% | 63.3% | 50.7% |
| Charlie McAvoy | 65.9% | 55.4% | 59.4% |
| Patrice Bergeron | 72.0% | 53.4% | 67.3% |
54.4% together, 63.3% for him apart and 50.7% for Carlo apart. He was carrying it: the share stayed with him and left Carlo behind.
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
151 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 47 feet. 2% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 75% from beyond forty.