This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Ryan McDonagh
Nashville Predators Defense
Twelve goals better at the defensive end than the chances deserved, and 854 games behind him.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010-11 | NYR | 40 | 1 | 8 | 9 | +16 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 27 | 3.7 | 18:44 |
| 2011-12 | NYR | 82 | 7 | 25 | 32 | +25 | 44 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 123 | 5.7 | 24:44 |
| 2012-13 | NYR | 47 | 4 | 15 | 19 | +13 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 83 | 4.8 | 24:21 |
| 2013-14 | NYR | 77 | 14 | 29 | 43 | +11 | 36 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 177 | 7.9 | 24:49 |
| 2014-15 | NYR | 71 | 8 | 25 | 33 | +23 | 26 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 148 | 5.4 | 23:08 |
| 2015-16 | NYR | 73 | 9 | 25 | 34 | +26 | 22 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 113 | 8.0 | 22:21 |
| 2016-17 | NYR | 77 | 6 | 36 | 42 | +20 | 37 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 153 | 3.9 | 24:21 |
| 2017-18 | NYR/TBL | 63 | 4 | 25 | 29 | +8 | 20 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 99 | 4.0 | 23:20 |
| 2018-19 | TBL | 82 | 9 | 37 | 46 | +38 | 34 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 128 | 7.0 | 22:05 |
| 2019-20 | TBL | 50 | 1 | 11 | 12 | +7 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 50 | 2.0 | 20:42 |
| 2020-21 | TBL | 50 | 4 | 8 | 12 | +13 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 85 | 4.7 | 21:54 |
| 2021-22 | TBL | 71 | 4 | 22 | 26 | +15 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 85 | 4.7 | 22:27 |
| 2022-23 | NSH | 71 | 2 | 18 | 20 | +12 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 78 | 2.6 | 21:32 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 854 | 73 | 284 | 357 | +227 | 326 | 9 | 4 | 12 | 1349 | 5.4 | 22:51 |
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
2 goals and 18 assists in 71 games — 20 points — at 21:32 a night. Plus-12, 78 shots, 22 penalty minutes.
45.2 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 22nd percentile, with his ice at 55-48 against an expectation of 49.71-60.36 — twelve goals better at the defensive end than the chances predicted.
He started 43.9 per cent of his shifts in the attacking zone, the 23rd percentile, which is the third-hardest share on the Nashville blue line. The chance share is what happens to a defensive defenceman given defensive shifts; the plus-12 is what happens when Saros is behind him.
Thirteen seasons, 854 games, 357 points.
The Finesse Game
78 shots at a median of 50 feet, 11 per cent from inside twenty and 69 per cent from beyond forty.
Beyond forty: 45 shots on goal and no goals. Inside forty: 30 shots, 2 goals.
Two goals in seventy-one games, and 73 in 854 across a career. He has never been an offensive defenceman and Nashville is not paying for one.
93.7 mph at the 69th percentile, on thirteen slap shots.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 216, and 22 penalty minutes in 71 games.
Top speed 22.5 mph, the 62nd percentile; bursts 0.8 a game, the 44th; 2.75 miles a game, the 64th. At thirty-four those are respectable readings and better than several of his teammates twelve years younger.
He blocks shots, takes the body in front of his own net and kills penalties. Twenty-two penalty minutes across seventy-one games of hard defensive shifts is a low figure and it comes from not being beaten in the first place.
At 216 pounds he can still move a forward out of the crease, which on this blue line matters.
The Intangibles
Twelfth overall in 2007 to Montreal, traded to the Rangers before he played a game, captain there, and two Stanley Cups in Tampa Bay.
He is thirty-four with 854 games, and Nashville took the contract to get a defensive defenceman it did not otherwise have.
The honest reading is a still-useful second-pair defenceman on a declining curve, whose plus-12 last season was substantially a goaltender’s doing. The 22nd-percentile chance share from a 23rd-percentile zone start is roughly what should be expected and is not the argument against him.
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.
- 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.
“He blocks shots, takes the body in front of his own net and kills penalties.”
“He blocks shots, takes the body in front of his own net and kills penalties.”
“At 216 pounds he can still move a forward out of the crease, which on this blue line matters.”
“Twelfth overall in 2007 to Montreal, traded to the Rangers before he played a game, captain there, and two Stanley Cups in Tampa Bay.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 1,255 minutes
- Expected goals
- 45.2%
- 22nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 44.8%
- 16th 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: 55 for, 48 against. Expected: 49.7 and 60.4.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 58 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 638 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 73 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, 2022-23 · 71 games
- Top speed
- 22.5 mph
- 85th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.80 a game
- Distance
- 2.75 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 93.7 mph
- 61st pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.5
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.0
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
2022-23 · 1255 minutes at five-on-five
- Roman Josi43%
- Dante Fabbro21%
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
- NSH took 47.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 45.2% — 1.8 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,255 minutes at five-on-five — 87th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roman Josi | 48.4% | 42.4% | 50.6% |
| Colton Sissons | 38.8% | 47.5% | 47.3% |
| Yakov Trenin | 39.8% | 47.0% | 49.3% |
48.4% together, 42.4% for him apart and 50.6% for Josi apart. He was worse away from Josi, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Josi 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
117 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 35 feet. 11% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 69% from beyond forty.