This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2024-25 report →
Ryan Suter
Dallas Stars Defense
The 6th-lowest top speed of the 192 defencemen the tracking covers, 23:39 a night at 37, and eighteen points of chance share riding on which forwards are out with him.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005-06 | NSH | 71 | 1 | 15 | 16 | +7 | 66 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 84 | 1.2 | 17:21 |
| 2006-07 | NSH | 82 | 8 | 16 | 24 | +10 | 54 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 87 | 9.2 | 20:09 |
| 2007-08 | NSH | 76 | 7 | 24 | 31 | +3 | 71 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 138 | 5.1 | 20:35 |
| 2008-09 | NSH | 82 | 7 | 38 | 45 | -16 | 73 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 143 | 4.9 | 24:16 |
| 2009-10 | NSH | 82 | 4 | 33 | 37 | +4 | 48 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 125 | 3.2 | 23:59 |
| 2010-11 | NSH | 70 | 4 | 35 | 39 | +20 | 54 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 115 | 3.5 | 25:12 |
| 2011-12 | NSH | 79 | 7 | 39 | 46 | +15 | 30 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 134 | 5.2 | 26:30 |
| 2012-13 | MIN | 48 | 4 | 28 | 32 | +2 | 24 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 91 | 4.4 | 27:17 |
| 2013-14 | MIN | 82 | 8 | 35 | 43 | +15 | 34 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 150 | 5.3 | 29:25 |
| 2014-15 | MIN | 77 | 2 | 36 | 38 | +7 | 48 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 150 | 1.3 | 29:04 |
| 2015-16 | MIN | 82 | 8 | 43 | 51 | +10 | 30 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 188 | 4.3 | 28:36 |
| 2016-17 | MIN | 82 | 9 | 31 | 40 | +34 | 36 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 164 | 5.5 | 26:55 |
| 2017-18 | MIN | 78 | 6 | 45 | 51 | -1 | 34 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 149 | 4.0 | 26:47 |
| 2018-19 | MIN | 82 | 7 | 40 | 47 | -8 | 41 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 136 | 5.1 | 26:42 |
| 2019-20 | MIN | 69 | 8 | 40 | 48 | -6 | 12 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 111 | 7.2 | 24:38 |
| 2020-21 | MIN | 56 | 3 | 16 | 19 | +9 | 12 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 86 | 3.5 | 22:11 |
| 2021-22 | DAL | 82 | 7 | 25 | 32 | +1 | 40 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 118 | 5.9 | 23:39 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 1280 | 100 | 539 | 639 | +106 | 707 | 36 | 4 | 18 | 2169 | 4.6 | 24:57 |
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
7 goals and 25 assists in 82 games at 23:39 a night, the 89th percentile among defencemen — a plus-1 and 40 penalty minutes, in his first season in Dallas after seven in Nashville and nine in Minnesota.
51.5 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,590 minutes, the 62nd percentile. His ice went 59-55 against an expectation of 69.56-65.45 — ten fewer goals for than the chances promised and ten fewer against, which is a wash that hides two errors of the same size.
Seven playoff games at 24 minutes a night for three assists.
The Finesse Game
3.65 shots per 60 is the 31st percentile among defencemen, the median travels 50 feet, and 7 per cent come from the slot. He shoots rarely and from distance, which is the profile the position had twenty years ago.
2:11 a night on the power play is the 80th percentile, and 41 per cent of his points came there — the 93rd. That is the tell. 0.70 even-strength points per 60 is the 23rd percentile: strip out the man advantage and the offence is close to nothing.
0.59 takeaways per 60 is the 20th percentile and 1.42 giveaways is the 32nd. He does not force the puck and he does not steal it.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 201, and 37 years old.
1.42 hits per 60 is the 11th-fewest of the 202 qualified defencemen, and 2.72 blocks is the 14th-fewest. A man playing the most defensive minutes in Dallas finished in the bottom fifteen of the league at both of the things the box score counts as defending. Either he is positioning himself so well that neither is required, or he is not getting there. Nothing in the repo separates the two, and the phrasing matters more than it looks.
20.7 mph is the 6th-lowest top speed of the 192 defencemen the tracking covers, and 0.6 bursts over 20 mph per 60 is the 15th percentile. He reached 20 mph roughly once every three games across a full 82.
8.42 miles per 60 is the 92nd of 192 from the bottom. He is out there for a very long time and covers an ordinary amount of ground while he is.
0.15 penalties drawn per 60 is the 9th percentile — nobody has to foul him, because he is never past anyone.
The Intangibles
Seventh overall in 2003, and 1,280 NHL games with 639 points across seventeen seasons. He has not finished a season under 22 minutes a night since 2007-08.
The with-and-without-you data is the clearest reading of him in this book, and it is not flattering. With Joe Pavelski he takes 62.0 per cent of the chances; without Pavelski, 46.4. With Roope Hintz 62.3 and without him 45.8. With Jason Robertson 62.6 and without him 46.0. Then the other direction: with Jamie Benn 44.9, with Tyler Seguin 45.2, and both of those men do better away from him than with him.
Eighteen points of chance share, and the variable is entirely which forwards the coach sends out. He is a passenger with a first-pair workload, and at 37 the workload is the thing that will not last.
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
- ordinaryraised, and called ordinary
- 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-shot· beats a goaltender from range
5 of 130 attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 3.8%, 91st percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.21) · 16% keep it
- durable· was available
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
- workhorse· carries the load at even strength
19:23 a game at five-on-five, 92nd percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
“A man playing the most defensive minutes in Dallas finished in the bottom fifteen of the league at both of the things the box score counts as defending.”
“Either he is positioning himself so well that neither is required, or he is not getting there. Nothing in the repo separates the two, and the phrasing matters more than it looks.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,590 minutes
- Expected goals
- 51.5%
- 66th pct
- Shot attempts
- 51.1%
- 66th 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: 59 for, 55 against. Expected: 69.6 and 65.5.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 62 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 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 47 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, 2021-22 · 82 games
- Top speed
- 20.7 mph
- 19th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.22 a game
- Distance
- 3.32 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 92.1 mph
- 48th 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 90.4
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
2021-22 · 1590 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, 2021-22
- The club
- DAL took 51.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.5% — 0.5 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,590 minutes at five-on-five — 100th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Miro Heiskanen | 54.2% | 48.5% | 52.6% |
| Joe Pavelski | 62.0% | 46.4% | 53.3% |
| Roope Hintz | 62.3% | 45.8% | 53.0% |
54.2% together, 48.5% for him apart and 52.6% for Heiskanen apart. He was worse away from Heiskanen, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Heiskanen 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
178 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 7 of them goals. His median goal came from 50 feet. 4% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 72% from beyond forty.