Armchair Hockey Scout Beta
41

Robert Bortuzzo

Utah Hockey Club Defense

Five hundred and eleven penalty minutes in 560 games, and no points at all last season.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2011-12PIT6000+1200030.010:54
2012-13PIT15224+3270001020.013:17
2013-14PIT5401010-374000500.015:29
2014-15PIT/STL51358-993000565.415:07
2015-16STL40213+252000474.313:16
2016-17STL38134+1115000452.214:05
2017-18STL724913+1141001765.314:48
2018-19STL592810+947000752.715:28
2019-20STL42246+1221001365.613:07
2020-21STL40145-347001313.214:10
2021-22STL73156-436000472.113:44
2022-23STL43235+929000306.712:34
2023-24STL/NYI27000027000110.013:44
2024-25 so far
Career560205474+395110035173.914:11

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

27 games with the Islanders, no goals and no assists, 27 penalty minutes, 13:44 a night and even. He took 44.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 329 minutes, the 20th percentile, and his ice went 13-15 against an expectation of 11.30-13.93.

Two goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and a goal more conceded than they called for. Forty-four point eight per cent of the chances and 41.1 per cent of the attempts are the lowest shares of any defenceman on this roster.

The Finesse Game

18 attempts at a median of 56 feet with 83 per cent of them from beyond forty and 11 per cent from inside twenty, 11 of those on goal, converted at nothing at all against a career 3.87 across 517 shots.

Twenty career goals and no power-play goals in 560 games. Eighteen attempts in 27 games is barely two-thirds of a shot a night; there is no offensive part of this game and there has not been one for thirteen seasons.

The Physical Game

He is 6-4 and 206 and took 27 penalty minutes in 27 games.

511 career penalty minutes in 560 games. He fights, he cross-checks people out of the crease, and thirteen seasons of doing it have produced almost exactly one penalty minute for every game he has played.

The Intangibles

Seventy-eighth overall in 2007 by Pittsburgh, thirteen seasons, and Utah will be his fourth organisation.

A career plus-39 in 560 games. He is 35, he played 27 games last season and did not record a point in any of them, and he has been on the right side of the ledger in eight of his thirteen seasons.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 329 minutes

Expected goals
44.8%
20th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
41.1%
3rd pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 13 for, 15 against. Expected: 11.3 and 13.9.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
43rd
Numbers
20th

The report ranks him 23 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 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 NYI · 293 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, 2023-24

The club
NYI took 49.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 44.8% — 4.3 below the club he did it on.
The role
329 minutes at five-on-five — 8th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Mike Reilly52.9%41.5%53.6%
Samuel Bolduc47.9%43.4%48.0%
Bo Horvat52.6%42.6%53.2%

52.9% together, 41.5% for him apart and 53.6% for Reilly apart. He was worse away from Reilly, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Reilly did.

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

18 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 0 of them goals. 11% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 83% from beyond forty.