Neal Pionk

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

77 games, 3 goals and 31 assists at 21:08 a night, plus-5, forty-six penalty minutes, 140 shots, one power-play goal. Undrafted, and 303 games and 132 assists across five seasons out of it.

The Finesse Game

Three goals from 140 shots is 2.1 per cent, the 26th-lowest conversion of the 202 defencemen who played forty games — and 5.16 shots per 60 is the 69th percentile, so the volume is there and nothing is going in.

A 53-foot median with seventy-eight per cent of his attempts from beyond forty feet.

0.96 even-strength points per 60 is the 51st percentile and thirty-five per cent of his points came on the power play, off 2:11 a night at the 82nd percentile.

Thirty-one assists in seventy-seven games, which is the fourth time in five seasons he has cleared twenty.

46.8 per cent of the expected goals is the 57th-lowest of all 202 defencemen and 46.9 per cent of the attempts the 22nd percentile. Those are bad numbers and they belong to a man playing twenty-one minutes a night.

And the goal ledger disagrees with them. His ice went 58-57 against an expectation of 55.67-63.41 — two ahead in front and six fewer against than the model asked. A 22nd-percentile attempt share that conceded six fewer than expected is the goaltending, and Winnipeg’s rated 8th in the league.

2.51 giveaways per 60 is the 28th-most of the 202.

The Physical Game

6-0 and 190 pounds, and forty-six penalty minutes in seventy-seven games.

6.82 hits per 60 is the 83rd percentile at that size, which is a real number, and 3.35 blocks per 60 the 23rd percentile, against 1:03 a night short-handed at the 28th.

0.74 penalties drawn per 60 is the 90th percentile among defencemen against 0.85 taken.

The Intangibles

22.4 mph is the 70th percentile among the 192 tracked defencemen, 0.9 bursts over twenty miles an hour per 60 the 24th and 8.56 miles per 60 the 60th. Quick enough, almost never sprinting, ordinary ground covered.

With Brenden Dillon he took 47.8 per cent of the attempts across 1,541 — the largest pairing in this chapter. Pionk apart from him was 45.1 and Dillon apart from Pionk 49.7. The pair is better than Pionk alone and worse than Dillon alone, which is a clear enough reading.

He is 27, undrafted out of Minnesota-Duluth, with 151 points in 303 games. The assists and the hit rate are real and the possession shares at twenty-one minutes are the problem. Three goals from 140 shots will correct itself; a 22nd-percentile attempt share on the second pair will not.