This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2025-26 report →
Pierre-Olivier Joseph
St. Louis Blues Defense
A first-round pick who has never played for the club that drafted him.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | PIT | 16 | 1 | 4 | 5 | +1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 27 | 3.7 | 16:47 |
| 2021-22 | PIT | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0.0 | 18:14 |
| 2022-23 | PIT | 75 | 5 | 16 | 21 | +8 | 44 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 108 | 4.6 | 15:15 |
| 2023-24 | PIT | 52 | 2 | 9 | 11 | -3 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 42 | 4.8 | 15:05 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 147 | 8 | 29 | 37 | +4 | 66 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 184 | 4.3 | 15:26 |
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
52 games with Pittsburgh, 2 goals and 9 assists for 11 points, 14 penalty minutes, 15:05 a night and minus-3, with 1 game-winner. He took 46.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 740 minutes, the 34th percentile, and his ice went 32-37 against an expectation of 30.56-34.75.
A goal and a half of finishing above what the chances were worth and two more conceded than they called for. Fifty-two games is the second-most he has played in a season.
The Finesse Game
58 attempts at a median of 54 feet with 74 per cent of them from beyond forty and 5 per cent from inside twenty, 37 of those on goal, converted at 5.2 per cent against a career 4.35 across 184 shots.
Twenty-nine career assists against 8 goals in 147 games. He skates well enough to carry the puck out of pressure and does it rather than rimming, which is the whole of his value and the reason he keeps being given third-pairing minutes.
The Physical Game
He is 6-2 and 185 and took 14 penalty minutes.
Sixty-six career penalty minutes in 147 games. He is tall and very light and defends with reach and skating rather than weight; there is not enough of him to win a battle in front of his own net against a heavy forward.
The Intangibles
Twenty-third overall in 2017 by Arizona, four seasons, and St. Louis will be his third organisation.
A career plus-4 in 147 games. He was a first-round pick who has never played a game for the club that drafted him and has never held a full-time job for the two that have had him since.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 740 minutes
- Expected goals
- 46.8%
- 31st pct
- Shot attempts
- 49%
- 46th 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: 32 for, 37 against. Expected: 30.6 and 34.8.
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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 68 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 PIT · 740 minutes at five-on-five
- Kris Letang50%
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
- PIT took 51.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 46.8% — 4.3 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 740 minutes at five-on-five — 34th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kris Letang | 41.7% | 52.0% | 52.0% |
| Drew O'Connor | 46.1% | 47.1% | 51.6% |
| Sidney Crosby | 50.6% | 44.9% | 54.6% |
41.7% together, 52.0% for him apart and 52.0% for Letang apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.
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
58 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 62 feet. 5% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 74% from beyond forty.