This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2024-25 report →
Mike Reilly
Boston Bruins Defense
The 96th percentile in chance share and the 2nd percentile in blocked shots — a puck-mover who does nothing else and was scratched for it.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | MIN | 29 | 1 | 6 | 7 | -4 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 27 | 3.7 | 12:05 |
| 2016-17 | MIN | 17 | 1 | 0 | 1 | +1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19 | 5.3 | 12:23 |
| 2017-18 | MIN/MTL | 57 | 2 | 16 | 18 | -5 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 65 | 3.1 | 14:58 |
| 2018-19 | MTL | 57 | 3 | 8 | 11 | 0 | 16 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 101 | 3.0 | 18:41 |
| 2019-20 | MTL/OTT | 44 | 1 | 15 | 16 | -6 | 24 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 85 | 1.2 | 18:01 |
| 2020-21 | OTT/BOS | 55 | 0 | 27 | 27 | +5 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 98 | 0.0 | 19:16 |
| 2021-22 | BOS | 70 | 4 | 13 | 17 | -1 | 32 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 135 | 3.0 | 18:57 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 329 | 12 | 85 | 97 | -10 | 130 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 530 | 2.3 | 17:12 |
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 13 assists in 70 games — 17 points at 18:57 a night, minus-1, with 1 shorthanded goal on 135 shots and 32 penalty minutes.
57.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,191 minutes, the 96th percentile among defencemen. His ice went 47-42 against an expectation of 54.85-40.09 — eight goals of scoring that the chances said should have arrived and did not, and two more conceded than they predicted.
Eight goals of missing finish is the largest such gap of any Boston defenceman, and on a club whose best forwards converted well above expectation, it is a strange thing to have happened in front of a man taking 58 per cent of the chances.
The Finesse Game
85 assists and 12 goals in 329 games is the record of a defenceman who exists to move a puck forward. 6.10 shots per 60 is the 84th percentile among defencemen and 15 per cent of them came from inside the slot, the 75th — he activates, and he is one of the few defencemen here who does.
Three per cent conversion off 135 attempts. The shot arrives without threatening anything, which is why the volume produced four goals.
The Physical Game
This is where it falls apart. 2.44 blocks per 60 is the 2nd percentile among the league defencemen — second-lowest at the position — with 4.25 hits at the 52nd.
0.14 penalties drawn per 60 is the 5th percentile and minus-0.59 on drawn against taken is the 10th. He gives away more than he wins back and he does not put himself in front of pucks, and both of those are why a defenceman with a 96th-percentile chance share spends April in a suit.
Top speed 21.9 mph at the 46th percentile. Ordinary feet.
The Intangibles
Ninety-eighth overall in 2011 by Columbus, and 329 games across Minnesota, Montreal, Ottawa and Boston without ever holding a top-four job for a full season.
He is 29. The measured record says he is one of the most effective play-driving defencemen in the league, and four coaching staffs have looked at him and seen a man who will not block a shot. Both readings are supported by this page, and the second one is the reason he is a third-pair defenceman.
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.
- 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.
“85 assists and 12 goals in 329 games is the record of a defenceman who exists to move a puck forward”
“2.44 blocks per 60 is the 2nd percentile among the league defencemen”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,191 minutes
- Expected goals
- 57.8%
- 96th pct
- Shot attempts
- 56.5%
- 93rd 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: 47 for, 42 against. Expected: 54.9 and 40.1.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 85 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 — 51 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 · 70 games
- Top speed
- 21.9 mph
- 64th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.56 a game
- Distance
- 2.67 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 94.2 mph
- 63rd 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 · 1191 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 57.8% — 1.6 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,191 minutes at five-on-five — 84th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Charlie McAvoy | 62.6% | 55.0% | 60.5% |
| Brandon Carlo | 56.4% | 58.4% | 50.5% |
| Taylor Hall | 57.4% | 57.9% | 57.1% |
62.6% together, 55.0% for him apart and 60.5% for McAvoy apart. He was worse away from McAvoy, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than McAvoy 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
173 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 21 feet. 10% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 65% from beyond forty.