This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2024-25 report →

Reese Johnson

The 1st percentile in expected-goal share and the 2nd in offensive-zone starts — the hardest minutes on a hopeless club.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2020-21	CHI	5	0	0	0	-2	9	0	0	0	4	0.0	7:57
2021-22	CHI	37	1	5	6	-13	16	0	0	0	24	4.2	10:38
2022-23	CHI	57	4	2	6	-15	38	0	0	1	54	7.4	11:01
2023-24 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	99	5	7	12	-30	63	0	0	1	82	6.1	10:43

This Season So Far

The 2023-24 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 2 assists in 57 games — 6 points at 11:01 a night, minus-15, with 38 penalty minutes on 54 shots at 7.41 per cent.

36.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 568 minutes, the 1st percentile, with 36.6 per cent of his even-strength shifts starting in the offensive zone, the 2nd.

Those two numbers belong together and this book keeps saying so. A fourth-line centre sent out for defensive-zone draws on a club that finished 31st in shot attempts is going to post a share like that whatever he does, and nothing here separates the player from the assignment.

The Finesse Game

54 attempts at a median of 25 feet. Three goals on sixteen shots from inside twenty, one from the middle band, none on thirteen from beyond forty.

5 goals and 12 points in 99 career games. He is not on the ice for offence and the club has never suggested otherwise.

The Physical Game

6-1 and 193 with 38 penalty minutes in 57 games, and a top speed of 23.1 mph at the 87th percentile against 1.75 miles a game at the 6th.

That pairing — quick on a very short shift — is the standard shape of a defensive fourth-liner, and 1.5 bursts a game at the 72nd percentile says he uses the speed where it counts. He is first man in on the forecheck and he finishes the check when he gets there.

The Intangibles

He arrived without a pick attached — undrafted out of the WHL, three seasons in the American League, and 99 NHL games by 25.

A fourth-line centre who kills penalties and takes the hard draws is a real job. Whether it survives a rebuild that is about to get serious is a different question.

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

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
29.4% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 90th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
hard-minutes· is started in his own end, against the other club's best
30% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 5th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
forechecks-aggressivelya strength· first man in, and on the puck
“He is first man in on the forecheck and he finishes the check when he gets there.”
undrafteda strength· arrived without a pick attached
“He arrived without a pick attached”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 568 minutes

Expected goals: 36.4%; 1st pct
Shot attempts: 40%; 2nd pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 14 for, 30 against. Expected: 13.6 and 23.7.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

26th

Numbers

1st

The report ranks him 25 points above where the numbers do. 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 141 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 57 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

2022-23 · 568 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, 2022-23

The club: CHI took 42.4% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 36.4% — 6.0 below the club he did it on.
The role: 568 minutes at five-on-five — 20th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
MacKenzie Entwistle	34.6%	37.8%	41.5%
Boris Katchouk	36.1%	36.7%	47.8%
Connor Murphy	40.1%	34.4%	42.2%

34.6% together, 37.8% for him apart and 41.5% for Entwistle 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

68 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 15 feet. 29% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 29% from beyond forty.