Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

57

Nick DeSimone

Utah Hockey Club Defense

Undrafted, and 34 games at 29 on four penalty minutes.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2022-23CGY4000-4200040.011:15
2023-24CGY/NJD34257+34001287.113:29
2024-25 so far
Career38257-16001326.313:15

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

34 games with New Jersey, 2 goals and 5 assists for 7 points, 4 penalty minutes, 13:29 a night and plus-3, with 1 game-winner. He took 47.7 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 443 minutes, the 36th percentile, and his ice went 20-16 against an expectation of 19.32-21.14.

Level with the chances at the offensive end and five goals of goaltending above them. Four penalty minutes in 34 games is the smallest total on this roster.

The Finesse Game

37 attempts at a median of 52 feet with 73 per cent of them from beyond forty and 3 per cent from inside twenty, 27 of those on goal, converted at 7.1 per cent against a career 6.25 across 32 shots.

Two career goals and 5 assists in 38 games. He moves the puck quickly and shoots from the point when the lane is there; thirty-seven attempts in 34 games is a seventh defenceman’s volume and the accuracy behind it is better than the sample deserves.

The Physical Game

He is 6-2 and 194 and took 4 penalty minutes in 34 games.

Six career penalty minutes in 38 games. He does not defend by contact at all; the gap is closed with feet and the stick does the rest, which at 194 pounds is the only version of the job available to him.

The Intangibles

Undrafted, two seasons, and Utah will be his third organisation.

A career minus-1 in 38 games from a man nobody drafted. He reached the league at 28 and played 34 games in his second season at 29.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 443 minutes

Expected goals
47.7%
36th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
49.9%
54th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 20 for, 16 against. Expected: 19.3 and 21.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
57th
Numbers
36th

The report ranks him 21 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 71 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 with CGY · 276 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, 2023-24

The club
NJD took 50.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.7% — 3.0 below the club he did it on.
The role
443 minutes at five-on-five — 15th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Luke Hughes55.2%44.8%51.6%
Nazem Kadri47.7%47.8%50.9%
Connor Zary52.0%46.7%52.2%

55.2% together, 44.8% for him apart and 51.6% for Hughes 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

37 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 59 feet. 3% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 73% from beyond forty.