Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

29

Parker Wotherspoon

Boston Bruins Defense

Nine points in fifty-three NHL games, no goals, and eighty-three per cent of his attempts from beyond forty feet.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2022-23NYI12011+54000100.013:20
2023-24BOS41088+631000320.017:43
2024-25 so far
Career53099+1135000420.016:43

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

No goals and 8 assists in 41 games — 8 points at 17:43 a night, plus-6, on 32 shots with 31 penalty minutes.

50.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 643 minutes, the 57th percentile — a better share than either half of the top pair managed. His ice went 31-23 against an expectation of 25.12-24.48.

The Finesse Game

32 attempts at a median of 55 feet, with 83 per cent from beyond 40 feet and not one of them from inside 20. No goals in 53 NHL games.

There is no shot and no offensive game at all. Eight assists is what a third-pairing defenceman produces by moving the puck to the man who can do something with it, and that is the entire contribution and it is a real one.

The Physical Game

6-1 and 190 and light for the position. He defends with his stick and his feet, and he will lose a battle in front of his own net to a heavy forward.

31 penalty minutes in 41 games is on the high side for a player who does not hit, and most of it is the stick foul that follows losing a step.

The Intangibles

A hundred and twelfth overall in 2015 by the Islanders, seven seasons in the American league, and 53 NHL games at 27.

He is a seventh defenceman who was needed for half a season and did not cost his club anything, which is precisely the job. A fourth-round pick who reaches the NHL at 26 and holds a spot on a 109-point team has done something almost nobody in his draft position does.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 643 minutes

Expected goals
50.6%
57th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
47.4%
30th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 31 for, 23 against. Expected: 25.1 and 24.5.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
11th
Numbers
57th

The numbers rank him 46 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 41 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 54 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 · 643 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
BOS took 49.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.6% — 0.9 above the club he did it on.
The role
643 minutes at five-on-five — 28th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Morgan Geekie50.9%50.6%49.7%
Jake DeBrusk53.5%49.6%50.1%
Kevin Shattenkirk62.5%46.4%52.8%

50.9% together, 50.6% for him apart and 49.7% for Geekie apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.

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

42 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 0 of them goals. 0% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 83% from beyond forty.