This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Samuel Girard
Colorado Avalanche Defense
One hundred and seventy pounds — the lightest defenceman in this edition — and the best chance share of any defenceman on a fifty-win club.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-18 | NSH/COL | 73 | 4 | 19 | 23 | -11 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 84 | 4.8 | 17:39 |
| 2018-19 | COL | 82 | 4 | 23 | 27 | +8 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 116 | 3.5 | 19:54 |
| 2019-20 | COL | 70 | 4 | 30 | 34 | +1 | 17 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 96 | 4.2 | 21:19 |
| 2020-21 | COL | 48 | 5 | 27 | 32 | +15 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 79 | 6.3 | 23:13 |
| 2021-22 | COL | 67 | 5 | 23 | 28 | -4 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 79 | 6.3 | 21:39 |
| 2022-23 | COL | 76 | 6 | 31 | 37 | -10 | 16 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 119 | 5.0 | 21:30 |
| 2023-24 | COL | 59 | 3 | 15 | 18 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 73 | 4.1 | 19:23 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 475 | 31 | 168 | 199 | -1 | 93 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 646 | 4.8 | 20:32 |
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
Fifty-nine games, 3 goals and 15 assists, 19:23 a night and exactly even. He took 55.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 989 minutes, the 90th percentile and the best mark of any defenceman on the club, and his ice went 60-48 against an expectation of 48.26-38.60.
The chance share is the number that matters and it is better than Cale Makar’s. He plays sheltered minutes against Makar’s and Toews’s, which is most of the difference, and he still has to win them.
The Finesse Game
He is 5-10 and 170 pounds and he retrieves pucks by arriving first. The skating is the whole game — he turns under a forecheck, changes the angle, and is gone before a heavy forward has finished deciding which way to lean.
One hundred and sixty-eight assists in 475 games is a genuine puck-moving rate and he does it by carrying as much as by passing. Seventy-three shots at a median of 51 feet and 3 went in; 31 goals in 475 games is the truth about the shot and it does not matter.
The Physical Game
He is beaten physically by anybody who chooses to be. At 170 pounds he cannot hold a man off a puck below the goal line and does not try — he takes the puck rather than the body and lives with the times that fails.
Ten penalty minutes in 59 games is a very low rate and it is a consequence of the same thing: he is either first to the puck or he is not involved.
The Intangibles
A second-round pick in 2016, traded at 19 in the Matt Duchene deal, and now in his seventh season as a top-four defenceman on a club that wins fifty games. He is 26 and has 475 games behind him.
He is the archetype this book keeps returning to: a very small defenceman who wins the chances against grown men because skating and reading are worth more than mass.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 989 minutes
- Expected goals
- 55.6%
- 90th pct
- Shot attempts
- 55.9%
- 92nd 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: 60 for, 48 against. Expected: 48.3 and 38.6.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 57 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 201 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 60 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 · 989 minutes at five-on-five
- Josh Manson47%
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
- COL took 52.3% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 55.6% — 3.3 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 989 minutes at five-on-five — 56th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Josh Manson | 55.6% | 55.5% | 52.0% |
| Ross Colton | 55.4% | 55.6% | 51.7% |
| Miles Wood | 51.0% | 57.3% | 49.4% |
55.6% together, 55.5% for him apart and 52.0% for Manson apart. Manson was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Manson 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
95 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 43 feet. 8% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 66% from beyond forty.