This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2023-24 report →
Michael McLeod
New Jersey Devils Center
The 12th-most sprints of 365 forwards and the 8th-most buried zone starts of 652 skaters, with the 5th-percentile shot rate.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | NJD | 21 | 0 | 3 | 3 | -8 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 21 | 0.0 | 12:12 |
| 2019-20 | NJD | 12 | 0 | 2 | 2 | +4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 0.0 | 10:14 |
| 2020-21 | NJD | 52 | 9 | 6 | 15 | -12 | 42 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 60 | 15.0 | 13:49 |
| 2021-22 | NJD | 77 | 6 | 14 | 20 | -13 | 52 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 78 | 7.7 | 13:20 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 162 | 15 | 25 | 40 | -29 | 111 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 170 | 8.8 | 13:07 |
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
6 goals and 14 assists in seventy-seven games at 13:20 a night, minus-13, fifty-two penalty minutes. Twelfth overall in 2016, four seasons, 162 games, 40 points, at 24.
The Finesse Game
There is nothing here and the report is elsewhere. 4.56 shots per 60 is the 5th percentile, 35 per cent from the slot is the 4th, and a 33-foot median is the 97th. He almost never shoots and when he does it is from outside. 1.33 even-strength points per 60 is the 23rd percentile and no power-play points at all.
2.69 takeaways per 60 is the 97th percentile — the one finesse column he wins, and it is a large one.
47.2 per cent of the expected goals is the 28th percentile, from 25.0 per cent of his end-zone starts in the attacking end — the 8th-lowest of the 652 skaters who took two hundred end-zone starts. That is one of the most buried assignments in hockey. His ice went 29-42 against an expectation of 30.52-34.09, another eight goals against above the model.
The deployment is doing most of the work in that share and this is the correct use of him.
The Physical Game
8.48 hits per 60 is the 84th percentile and 2.69 takeaways per 60 is the 97th, from the 8th-most buried zone-start assignment in the league. That is a coherent and genuinely valuable fourth-line identity.
1.17 penalties taken per 60 is the 85th percentile against 0.94 drawn, and fifty-two penalty minutes is the cost — on a club whose kill finished 10th, which is the one place New Jersey could afford it.
The Intangibles
13.8 bursts over 20 mph per 60 is the 12th-most of the 365 forwards the tracking covers, at a 23.7 mph top speed in the 96th percentile. 9.99 miles per 60 is the 80th.
A twelfth-overall pick who is among the fastest and hardest-working forwards the league measures, takes pucks off people at the 97th percentile, and cannot score at all. Four seasons and forty points say the last part is settled; the first three say why he keeps a job anyway.
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.
- perimeter· shoots from the outside, by choice or because he cannot get in
29.1% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 91st percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
- hard-minutes· is started in his own end, against the other club's best
25% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 2nd percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
“13.8 bursts over 20 mph per 60 is the 12th-most of the 365 forwards the tracking covers, at a 23.7 mph top speed in the 96th percentile.”
“8.48 hits per 60 is the 84th percentile and 2.69 takeaways per 60 is the 97th, from the 8th-most buried zone-start assignment in the league.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 868 minutes
- Expected goals
- 47.2%
- 33rd pct
- Shot attempts
- 46.5%
- 25th 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: 29 for, 42 against. Expected: 30.5 and 34.1.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 20 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 — 61 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 · 77 games
- Top speed
- 23.7 mph
- 98th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 3.06 a game
- Distance
- 2.22 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 89.1 mph
- 60th 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 · 868 minutes at five-on-five
- Janne Kuokkanenoff the roster18%
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
- NJD took 51.4% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.2% — 4.2 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Fourth line, 868 minutes at five-on-five — 47th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nathan Bastian | 50.0% | 44.7% | 51.9% |
| Jimmy Vesey | 47.0% | 47.4% | 53.8% |
| Damon Severson | 45.4% | 48.2% | 53.3% |
50.0% together, 44.7% for him apart and 51.9% for Bastian apart. He was worse away from Bastian, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Bastian did.
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
103 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 6 of them goals. His median goal came from 17 feet. 25% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 29% from beyond forty.