This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2025-26 report →
Matt Grzelcyk
Boston Bruins Defense
Five-foot-ten and 180 pounds, 382 NHL games, and a plus-46 on the softest usage on the blue line.
| 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 | BOS | 75 | 4 | 22 | 26 | +46 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 102 | 3.9 | 17:14 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 382 | 23 | 101 | 124 | +124 | 200 | 3 | 0 | 6 | 588 | 3.9 | 18:08 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 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 22 assists in 75 games — 26 points at 17:14 a night, plus-46, on 102 shots and 28 penalty minutes.
53.7 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,204 minutes, the 79th percentile. His ice went 70-29 against an expectation of 54.58-47.06 — sixteen goals of scoring above the chances and eighteen fewer conceded than they predicted, which is the single largest gap between chances and results on the roster and is very largely the goaltending.
He started 43.1 per cent of his shifts in the attacking end, the 78th percentile.
The Finesse Game
102 attempts at a median of 49 feet, 73 per cent from beyond 40 and 5 per cent from inside 20, converting at 3.92 per cent. The shot is measured at 96.1 mph, the 84th percentile, and it has produced 23 goals in 382 games — the recurring lesson of this book about hard point shots.
101 career assists is the real contribution, and it comes from the first pass rather than from the offensive blue line. He is quick and clean under a forecheck and he does not panic.
The Physical Game
5-10 and 180 pounds, which makes him one of the smallest defencemen in the league, and there is no physical game to describe — 200 penalty minutes in 382 games, and he cannot clear a crease or win a battle against a heavy forward.
The skating is where the survival has to come from, and here the measurement is honestly inconclusive: 22.2 mph is the 46th percentile, which is ordinary, and the tracking does not report the pivots and lateral quickness that a man this size must have to play 382 games. The inference is available and it is only an inference — nothing here measures it.
The Intangibles
Eighty-fifth overall in 2012, out of Boston University and Charlestown, and 382 NHL games at 180 pounds is a genuinely unlikely career.
He is 29 and has spent it entirely on a very good club, sheltered by design and effective within that shelter. The fair question is what he is on a team that cannot protect him, and Boston has never had to find out — this may be the season it does.
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.
- disciplined· stays out of the box
0.37 penalty minutes a game over 75, 10th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.75) · 35% keep it
- sheltered· is started in the attacking end
60% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 97th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
“He is quick and clean under a forecheck and he does not panic.”
“he cannot clear a crease or win a battle against a heavy forward”
“he cannot clear a crease or win a battle against a heavy forward”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 1,204 minutes
- Expected goals
- 53.7%
- 79th pct
- Shot attempts
- 51.4%
- 64th 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: 70 for, 29 against. Expected: 54.6 and 47.1.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 25 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 58 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
2022-23 · 1204 minutes at five-on-five
- Connor Cliftonnow BUF19%
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, 2022-23
- The club
- BOS took 53.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 53.7% — 0.2 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 1,204 minutes at five-on-five — 83rd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Charlie McAvoy | 54.1% | 53.3% | 57.4% |
| David Pastrnak | 53.6% | 53.8% | 54.8% |
| Pavel Zacha | 48.1% | 56.0% | 53.1% |
54.1% together, 53.3% for him apart and 57.4% for McAvoy apart. McAvoy was better away from him while his own share held, which is a mark against him more 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
143 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 40 feet. 5% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 73% from beyond forty.