This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Parker Wotherspoon
Pittsburgh Penguins Defense
Eighteen minutes a night in Boston from a seventh defenceman with 108 NHL games at 28.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-23 | NYI | 12 | 0 | 1 | 1 | +5 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0.0 | 13:20 |
| 2023-24 | BOS | 41 | 0 | 8 | 8 | +6 | 31 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 32 | 0.0 | 17:43 |
| 2024-25 | BOS | 55 | 1 | 6 | 7 | -10 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 44 | 2.3 | 18:02 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 108 | 1 | 15 | 16 | +1 | 45 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 86 | 1.2 | 17:23 |
This Season So Far
The 2025-26 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
1 goal and 6 assists in 55 games for Boston — 7 points at 18:02 a night, minus-10, on 10 penalty minutes.
Eighteen minutes a night is a great deal of ice for a player with 108 career games, and it says more about the club’s blue line than about him. Boston finished 26th in goals against.
The Finesse Game
44 attempts and 1 goal in 55 games. There is no shot — 16 points in 108 career NHL games.
The first pass is quick and simple and he does not hold the puck. That is the whole of the offensive contribution and it is enough for the job he is asked to do.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 190 and light for a defensive defenceman. He blocks shots and he defends positionally, and he does not clear the front of his own net by force.
10 penalty minutes in 55 games at eighteen minutes a night is a very low rate. He is disciplined and he does not reach.
The Intangibles
A fourth-round pick of the Islanders in 2015 who spent six full seasons in the American League before an NHL job.
108 games at 28. Pittsburgh signed him in the summer for depth, and on a club that dressed eight defencemen last season that is not a formality.
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
- he lacks itraised, and he does not have it
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.
- perimeter· shoots from the outside, by choice or because he cannot get in
85.5% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 94th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
- disciplined· stays out of the box
0.18 penalty minutes a game over 55, 8th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.75) · 35% keep it
“He blocks shots and he defends positionally, and he does not clear the front of his own net by force.”
“He blocks shots and he defends positionally, and he does not clear the front of his own net by force.”
“**10 penalty minutes in 55 games at eighteen minutes a night** is a very low rate. He is disciplined and he does not reach.”
“The first pass is quick and simple and he does not hold the puck.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 832 minutes
- Expected goals
- 50.8%
- 61st pct
- Shot attempts
- 47.5%
- 29th 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: 24 for, 30 against. Expected: 29.7 and 28.8.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 52 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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 63 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, 2024-25 · 55 games
- Top speed
- 21.2 mph
- 29th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.22 a game
- Distance
- 2.52 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 86.3 mph
- 23rd pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.6
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 89.7
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
2024-25 with BOS · 832 minutes at five-on-five
- Andrew Peeke21%
- Mason Lohrei18%
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, 2024-25
- The club
- BOS took 48.4% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.8% — 2.4 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 832 minutes at five-on-five — 39th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| David Pastrnak | 55.0% | 48.7% | 50.3% |
| Morgan Geekie | 57.2% | 47.9% | 51.5% |
| Pavel Zacha | 54.5% | 49.4% | 49.2% |
55.0% together, 48.7% for him apart and 50.3% for Pastrnak 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
62 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 1 of them goals. His median goal came from 28 feet. 0% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 85% from beyond forty.