This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Mike Matheson
Montreal Canadiens Defense
Twenty-five thirty-three a night, third in the edition, and fifty-one assists from a defenceman on a club that finished 28th.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | FLA | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0.0 | 17:32 |
| 2016-17 | FLA | 81 | 7 | 10 | 17 | -5 | 36 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 179 | 3.9 | 21:03 |
| 2017-18 | FLA | 81 | 10 | 17 | 27 | -1 | 61 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 167 | 6.0 | 21:20 |
| 2018-19 | FLA | 75 | 8 | 19 | 27 | -24 | 44 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 129 | 6.2 | 22:19 |
| 2019-20 | FLA | 59 | 8 | 12 | 20 | -1 | 14 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 104 | 7.7 | 18:02 |
| 2020-21 | PIT | 44 | 5 | 11 | 16 | +9 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 86 | 5.8 | 18:38 |
| 2021-22 | PIT | 74 | 11 | 20 | 31 | +12 | 33 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 140 | 7.9 | 18:48 |
| 2022-23 | MTL | 48 | 8 | 26 | 34 | +7 | 33 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 126 | 6.3 | 24:27 |
| 2023-24 | MTL | 82 | 11 | 51 | 62 | -24 | 58 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 187 | 5.9 | 25:33 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 547 | 68 | 166 | 234 | -26 | 309 | 7 | 2 | 13 | 1122 | 6.1 | 21:24 |
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
All 82 games, 11 goals and 51 assists for 62 points, 5 on the power play, 2 shorthanded, 58 penalty minutes, 25:33 a night and minus-24. He took 44.5 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,454 minutes, the 19th percentile, and his ice went 50-61 against an expectation of 56.73-70.84.
Seven goals of scoring that did not arrive and ten fewer conceded than the chances called for. The 25:33 is third in this edition behind John Carlson and Drew Doughty, and the minus-24 is what happens when a club plays its best defenceman that much against everybody’s best line.
The Finesse Game
249 attempts at a median of 49 feet with 70 per cent from beyond 40, 187 of them on goal, converted at 5.9 per cent against a career 6.06.
166 career assists in 547 games, 51 of them last season. The whole of his game is skating the puck out of his own end himself rather than passing it, and on a club that spends the season without the puck that is both his value and his exposure.
The Physical Game
He is 6-2 and 196 and defends with feet rather than with weight.
58 penalty minutes in 82 games at twenty-five and a half a night is a low rate for that workload. He closes gaps early, kills penalties, and has 2 career shorthanded goals — but he does not clear a crease and never has.
The Intangibles
Twenty-third overall in 2012 out of Pointe-Claire, three years at Boston College, nine seasons across three organisations, and 234 points in 547 games.
He is 30 and had 62 points from the blue line on a twenty-eighth-place club. What that costs is a minus-24 and what it buys is the only defenceman here who can leave the zone with the puck.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,454 minutes
- Expected goals
- 44.5%
- 19th pct
- Shot attempts
- 43%
- 8th 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: 50 for, 61 against. Expected: 56.7 and 70.8.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 67 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 415 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 74 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 · 1454 minutes at five-on-five
- Kaiden Guhle31%
- David Savard28%
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
- MTL took 46.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 44.5% — 1.6 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,454 minutes at five-on-five — 96th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nick Suzuki | 47.8% | 41.8% | 52.1% |
| Cole Caufield | 48.8% | 41.4% | 49.2% |
| Juraj Slafkovsky | 48.3% | 41.9% | 49.1% |
47.8% together, 41.8% for him apart and 52.1% for Suzuki apart. He was the one being carried: the share went with Suzuki and did not follow 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
249 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 11 of them goals. His median goal came from 23 feet. 9% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 70% from beyond forty.