Roman Josi

This Season So Far

The 2022-23 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

80 games, 23 goals and 73 assists for 96 points at 25:33 a night, plus-13, forty-six penalty minutes, 281 shots. Thirty-eighth overall in 2008, eleven seasons, 760 games, 542 points.

Ninety-six points is the most by any defenceman in the league and 11th among all skaters. His previous career high was the 65 of 2019-20.

The Finesse Game

Seventy-three assists is the most by any defenceman in the league and the 5th-most by any skater in it, against twenty-three goals.

2.06 even-strength points per 60 is the highest of the 202 defencemen who played forty games — not the highest percentile, the highest figure. Cale Makar is second at 1.99.

281 shots is the most by any defenceman in the league, forty-one clear of Makar, and 8.25 per 60 is the 2nd-most of the 202, behind Dougie Hamilton. Thirty-nine per cent of his points came on the power play, where he took 3:23 a night.

Twelve per cent of his shots came from the slot at a 49-foot median — this is a point shot, taken at enormous volume, converting at 8.2 per cent.

1.41 takeaways per 60 is the 85th percentile and 2.08 giveaways the 72nd. He handles it constantly and the ledger comes out slightly ahead.

51.3 per cent of the expected goals and 51.6 per cent of the attempts are ordinary shares, and they came from a soft chair: 60.2 per cent of his end-zone starts were in the attacking end, the 50th-highest of the 652 skaters who took two hundred end-zone starts.

His ice went 84-64 against an expectation of 67.88-64.41. Sixteen goals of finishing surplus going forward, and a goals-against that matched the model exactly.

The Physical Game

1.94 hits per 60 is the 15th percentile among defencemen and 3.90 blocks the 44th at 6-1 and 201 pounds. Forty-six penalty minutes across eighty games.

0.53 penalties drawn per 60 against 0.68 taken. He is not in the contact in either direction, and at twenty-five and a half minutes a night that is a choice the club has made about how it wants him used.

The Intangibles

21.9 mph is the 87th of 192 defencemen from the bottom, 0.9 bursts per 60 the 60th-fewest of 557 skaters, 8.46 miles per 60 the 101st-fewest. The chips say he is not fast and does not cover much ground; his 97.9 mph shot is the 80th percentile, which is the one place they agree with the point totals.

He is 32, in his eleventh season, and has just produced the best year any defenceman in the league produced. Nothing in the tracking explains how, and the report should say so rather than invent a mechanism: what is measurable is the volume, the assists, the ice time and the shelter, and those four together are the whole visible case.