Morgan Barron

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

27 games, 2 goals and 3 assists at 9:48 a night, minus-4, eight penalty minutes, 33 shots. Hundred-and-seventy-fourth overall in 2017 by the Rangers — the sixth round — two seasons, 32 games, 6 points.

Two hundred and fifty-seven minutes of five-on-five ice and twenty-seven games are both well short of the gate this book uses, so what follows is described rather than ranked.

The Finesse Game

Two goals from thirty-three shots is 6.1 per cent, from a 22-foot median with fifty-six per cent of his attempts from inside twenty feet, off 7.48 shots per 60 — which for a fourth-line winger playing under ten minutes is a healthy rate of pucks.

1.14 even-strength points per 60.

48.5 per cent of the expected goals against 45.0 per cent of the attempts across 257 five-on-five minutes. A three-and-a-half-point gap between the two says his shifts gave up volume and rather less quality, which is the pattern a defensively deployed fourth line produces.

He started 48.5 per cent of his end-zone shifts in the attacking end — sixty-four against sixty-eight — a shade on the hard side of even.

His ice went 6-10 against an expectation of 9.36-9.92. Three and a half short in front, across sixteen goals, which is not a sample.

The Physical Game

6-4 and 220 pounds, and 11.11 hits per 60 across twenty-seven games — a rate that would sit inside the top forty of the 393 qualified forwards if he had the games to enter the pool.

1.81 blocks per 60, and eight penalty minutes in twenty-seven games.

0.68 penalties drawn per 60 against 0.91 taken.

The Intangibles

10.11 miles per 60 and 9.75 bursts over twenty miles an hour per 60, both from twenty-seven games, against a 22.3 mph top speed. His shot is 88.9 mph.

A 6-4, 220-pound winger covering that much ground at that sprint count is an unusual combination, and the record cannot say whether it survives a full season of ice time.

He is 23, a sixth-round pick out of Cornell who came to Winnipeg in the Andrew Copp trade, with six points in thirty-two NHL games. The size, the hit rate and the mileage are three real things and all three are drawn from a quarter of a season. Two goals in twenty-seven games is why the next question is whether there is any offence at all.