Armchair Hockey Scout Beta
7

Pierre-Olivier Joseph

Vancouver Canucks Defense

No goals in 47 games across two clubs, and a minus-22 from a seventh defenceman.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2020-21PIT16145+16000273.716:47
2021-22PIT4000-2200070.018:14
2022-23PIT7551621+8441011084.615:15
2023-24PIT522911-314001424.815:05
2024-25STL/PIT47033-2245000420.015:16
2025-26 so far
Career19483240-181111022263.515:24

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

No goals and 3 assists in 47 games across St. Louis and Pittsburgh — 3 points at 15:16 a night, minus-22, with 45 penalty minutes.

Three points and a minus-22 in 47 games is a difficult line to read charitably. He was waived, claimed and moved during the season, which is the market’s own assessment.

The Finesse Game

42 attempts and no goals in 47 games. 40 points in 194 career NHL games.

3 assists. The skating is the asset — he escapes a forecheck by turning away from it and he can carry the puck — and the decisions with it have never been reliable enough for a regular job.

The Physical Game

6-2 and 185 and light for the position. He does not clear the front of his own net and he does not finish checks.

45 penalty minutes in 47 games is a high rate for a defenceman who is not physical, and most of it is the stick foul that follows losing a step.

The Intangibles

Twenty-third overall in 2017 by Arizona and traded to Pittsburgh in the Phil Kessel deal — 194 games and 40 points across three organisations.

He is 26 and Vancouver signed him in the summer. A left-shot seventh defenceman who can skate is a useful thing to have and this one has never held a job for a full season.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 659 minutes

Expected goals
49.5%
46th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
51.9%
73rd pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 25 for, 32 against. Expected: 24.3 and 24.8.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
7th
Numbers
46th

The numbers rank him 39 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 — 62 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

2024-25 with PIT · 375 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, 2024-25

The club
PIT took 49.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.5% — 0.5 above the club he did it on.
The role
659 minutes at five-on-five — 25th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Kris Letang51.4%49.0%46.9%
Matthew Kessel48.9%49.7%52.9%
Michael Bunting52.4%49.0%51.2%

51.4% together, 49.0% for him apart and 46.9% for Letang apart. Letang was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Letang than for him.

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

61 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 0 of them goals. 8% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 70% from beyond forty.