This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Nic Dowd
Washington Capitals Center
The 7th-hardest chair of 652 skaters, and the 11th-most blocks of 393 forwards.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | LAK | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0.0 | 10:35 |
| 2016-17 | LAK | 70 | 6 | 16 | 22 | -15 | 25 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 78 | 7.7 | 12:27 |
| 2017-18 | LAK/VAN | 56 | 3 | 1 | 4 | -10 | 28 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 51 | 5.9 | 10:32 |
| 2018-19 | WSH | 64 | 8 | 14 | 22 | +10 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 47 | 17.0 | 10:18 |
| 2019-20 | WSH | 56 | 7 | 8 | 15 | +11 | 28 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 52 | 13.5 | 10:50 |
| 2020-21 | WSH | 56 | 11 | 4 | 15 | +4 | 31 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 68 | 16.2 | 14:22 |
| 2021-22 | WSH | 64 | 10 | 14 | 24 | +10 | 44 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 90 | 11.1 | 14:16 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 371 | 45 | 57 | 102 | +11 | 178 | 2 | 4 | 10 | 389 | 11.6 | 12:07 |
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
64 games, 10 goals and 14 assists at 14:16 a night, plus-10, forty-four penalty minutes, 90 shots, one short-handed goal. Hundred-and-ninety-eighth overall in 2009 by Los Angeles — the seventh round — seven seasons, 371 games, 102 points.
The Finesse Game
He started 24.5 per cent of his end-zone shifts in the attacking end, the 7th-lowest of the 652 skaters who took two hundred end-zone starts, and took 52.2 per cent of the expected goals out of it.
One hundred and twenty-eight attacking-zone shifts against 394. Only six skaters in the league started in their own end more often, and he came out on the right side of the chances anyway.
Ten goals from ninety shots is 11.1 per cent, off 5.92 shots per 60 at the 24th percentile, from a 22-foot median with fifty-nine per cent of his attempts from inside twenty feet.
1.68 even-strength points per 60 is the 42nd percentile and four per cent of his points came on the power play, off four seconds a night.
0.92 giveaways per 60 is the 12th percentile, which is a very tidy figure for a man who spends his life in his own end.
His ice went 29-21 against an expectation of 28.7-26.28 — level in front and five fewer against.
The Physical Game
1:57 a night short-handed is the 91st percentile among forwards, with 3.48 blocks per 60 — the 11th-most of all 393.
9.14 hits per 60 is the 86th percentile at 6-2 and 195 pounds, and forty-four penalty minutes came out of sixty-four games.
0.92 penalties drawn per 60 against 1.38 taken is a net of minus 0.46, the 9th percentile among forwards. A man taking this many defensive-zone draws will be called for holding, and he is.
The Intangibles
21.7 mph is the 12th percentile among the 365 tracked forwards and 3.2 bursts over twenty miles an hour per 60 the 23rd, against 9.54 miles per 60 at the 39th. He is slow, and he is not making it up in volume either.
He is 32, a seventh-round pick, with 102 points in 371 games. The seventh-hardest chair in hockey, a positive chance share out of it, eleven-most blocks in the league and the 91st percentile of penalty-killing time are the whole job and it is done as well as anybody in this book does it. The skating and the penalty differential are what will end it, and both say the clock is running.
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.
- 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
“1:57 a night short-handed is the 91st percentile among forwards, with 3.48 blocks per 60 — the 11th-most of all 393.”
“He started 24.5 per cent of his end-zone shifts in the attacking end, the 7th-lowest of the 652 skaters who took two hundred end-zone starts, and took 52.2 per cent of the expected goals out of it.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 791 minutes
- Expected goals
- 52.2%
- 72nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 50.4%
- 59th 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, 21 against. Expected: 28.7 and 26.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 12 points of one another. 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.
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 — 69 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 · 64 games
- Top speed
- 21.7 mph
- 31st pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.77 a game
- Distance
- 2.27 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 87.1 mph
- 50th 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 · 780 minutes at five-on-five
- Carl Hagelinoff the roster57%
- Johan Larssonoff the roster20%
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
- WSH took 51.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 52.2% — 1.1 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third line, 791 minutes at five-on-five — 40th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Garnet Hathaway | 53.9% | 47.3% | 49.7% |
| Carl Hagelin | 51.7% | 53.0% | 49.5% |
| Nick Jensen | 52.5% | 52.0% | 50.5% |
53.9% together, 47.3% for him apart and 49.7% for Hathaway apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
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
111 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 10 of them goals. His median goal came from 11 feet. 45% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 11% from beyond forty.