This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Ryan Shea

Seventy-six per cent of his shot attempts from beyond 40 feet, in a 39-game season that was his first extended run at 27.

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

2023-24	PIT	31	1	0	1	+1	6	0	0	0	17	5.9	12:37
2024-25	PIT	39	2	3	5	-9	14	0	0	0	19	10.5	16:44
2025-26 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	70	3	3	6	-8	20	0	0	0	36	8.3	14:55

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

2 goals and 3 assists in 39 games — 5 points at 16:44 a night, minus-9, with 14 penalty minutes.

48.1 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 36th percentile, across 541 minutes. His ice went 16-26 against an expectation of 19.52-21.08 — five goals conceded above expectation on a third pairing.

The Finesse Game

19 attempts in 39 games at a median of 57 feet with 76 per cent from beyond 40 and 5 per cent from inside 20. He does not shoot.

The first pass is the job and it is adequate. He does not carry the puck out and he does not attempt the play that turns into a rush against, which is the correct trade at this level.

The Physical Game

6-1 and 200 and honest. He blocks shots, he takes the body, and he defends the front of the net without moving anybody out of it.

14 penalty minutes in 39 games. He is not nasty and he is not an agitator; the physical game is functional.

The Intangibles

A fourth-round pick of Chicago in 2015 out of Northeastern, who did not sign with them, signed with Dallas, did not play there either, and reached the NHL at 26.

70 games in two seasons. He is 28 and a seventh defenceman, and on a club that used eight of them last season the distinction matters less than it should.

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.

hard-minutes· is started in his own end, against the other club's best
39% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 10th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
shot-blockera strength· gets in front of it
“He blocks shots, he takes the body, and he defends the front of the net without moving anybody out of it.”
clears-the-creasehe lacks it· moves grown men off the front of his net
“He blocks shots, he takes the body, and he defends the front of the net without moving anybody out of it.”
nastyhe lacks it· hard to play against; the edge is the point
“He is not nasty and he is not an agitator; the physical game is functional.”
transitionhe lacks it· carries it out; gains the line under control
“He does not carry the puck out and he does not attempt the play that turns into a rush against, which is the correct trade at this level.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 541 minutes

Expected goals: 48.1%; 36th pct
Shot attempts: 50.1%; 54th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 16 for, 26 against. Expected: 19.5 and 21.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

7th

Numbers

36th

The numbers rank him 29 points above where the report does. 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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 62 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 · 39 games

Top speed: 21.3 mph; 35th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.33 a game
Distance: 2.34 miles a game
Hardest shot: 84.5 mph; 16th pct

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 · 541 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, 2024-25

The club: PIT took 49.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 48.1% — 0.9 below the club he did it on.
The role: Third pair, 541 minutes at five-on-five — 19th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Ryan Graves	47.9%	48.1%	51.0%
Noel Acciari	37.9%	51.2%	42.2%
Evgeni Malkin	50.6%	47.2%	47.7%

47.9% together, 48.1% for him apart and 51.0% for Graves apart. Graves 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

37 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 69 feet. 5% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 76% from beyond forty.