This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Rasmus Sandin
Washington Capitals Defense
Thirty points at 19:11 a night from a 189-pound defenceman, and no game-winning goals in six seasons of trying.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | TOR | 28 | 1 | 7 | 8 | -7 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 22 | 4.5 | 14:19 |
| 2020-21 | TOR | 9 | 0 | 4 | 4 | +6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0.0 | 14:40 |
| 2021-22 | TOR | 51 | 5 | 11 | 16 | +9 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 46 | 10.9 | 16:58 |
| 2022-23 | TOR/WSH | 71 | 7 | 28 | 35 | +3 | 39 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 81 | 8.6 | 19:19 |
| 2023-24 | WSH | 68 | 3 | 20 | 23 | -13 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 79 | 3.8 | 21:07 |
| 2024-25 | WSH | 82 | 4 | 26 | 30 | +13 | 23 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 78 | 5.1 | 19:11 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 309 | 20 | 96 | 116 | +11 | 100 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 315 | 6.3 | 18:42 |
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
4 goals and 26 assists in 82 games — 30 points at 19:11 a night, plus-13, with a power-play goal on 78 shots, and 23 penalty minutes.
51.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 60th percentile, across 1,364 minutes — the most on the roster. His ice went 71-52 against an expectation of 58.97-55.69, which is close to exactly what the chances predicted at both ends.
The Finesse Game
78 attempts at a median of 53 feet with 76 per cent from beyond 40, converting at 5.1 per cent for 4 goals.
26 assists and 96 in 309 career games. He carries the puck out of his own zone rather than passing it out and the skating is the reason he plays nineteen minutes at this weight. He walks the line on a second power-play unit.
The Physical Game
5-11 and 189 and he is one of the smaller defencemen in the league. He does not clear his crease by force and he does not win battles in front of his own net against a heavy forward.
23 penalty minutes in 82 games is a low rate. He defends with his feet and his stick and he closes gaps early, which is the only version of defending available at this size.
The Intangibles
Twenty-ninth overall in 2018 by Toronto and 309 games and 116 points, traded here in 2023 for a first-round pick.
He is 25. He has played more five-on-five minutes than any Washington defenceman and produced 30 points, and the club has never quite decided whether he is a top-four defenceman or a power-play specialist.
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.
- durable· was available
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“**He carries the puck out of his own zone rather than passing it out** and the skating is the reason he plays nineteen minutes at this weight.”
“**26 assists and 96 in 309 career games.**”
“He does not clear his crease by force and he does not win battles in front of his own net against a heavy forward.”
“**He defends with his feet and his stick and he closes gaps early**, which is the only version of defending available at this size.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,364 minutes
- Expected goals
- 51.4%
- 66th pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.5%
- 47th 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: 71 for, 52 against. Expected: 59.0 and 55.7.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 17 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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 72 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 · 82 games
- Top speed
- 21.8 mph
- 60th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.56 a game
- Distance
- 2.81 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 92.9 mph
- 68th 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 · 1364 minutes at five-on-five
- John Carlson42%
- Matt Roy27%
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
- WSH took 50.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.4% — 0.6 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,364 minutes at five-on-five — 94th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| John Carlson | 51.1% | 51.7% | 54.2% |
| Connor McMichael | 51.9% | 51.2% | 53.4% |
| Pierre-Luc Dubois | 57.1% | 48.6% | 54.6% |
51.1% together, 51.7% for him apart and 54.2% for Carlson apart. Carlson was better away from him while his own share held, which is a mark against him more 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
142 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 26 feet. 8% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 76% from beyond forty.