This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Sean Walker
Carolina Hurricanes Defense
Undrafted, ten goals from a third pairing, and two shorthanded goals.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | LAK | 39 | 3 | 7 | 10 | -8 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 55 | 5.5 | 15:26 |
| 2019-20 | LAK | 70 | 5 | 19 | 24 | -12 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 127 | 3.9 | 18:50 |
| 2020-21 | LAK | 47 | 5 | 13 | 18 | -13 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 92 | 5.4 | 18:10 |
| 2021-22 | LAK | 6 | 0 | 2 | 2 | -1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 18 | 0.0 | 18:22 |
| 2022-23 | LAK | 70 | 3 | 10 | 13 | -3 | 36 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 94 | 3.2 | 14:50 |
| 2023-24 | PHI/COL | 81 | 10 | 19 | 29 | +11 | 50 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 150 | 6.7 | 19:14 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 313 | 26 | 70 | 96 | -26 | 142 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 536 | 4.9 | 17:31 |
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
10 goals and 19 assists in 81 games for Philadelphia and Colorado — 29 points at 19:14 a night, plus-11, with 2 shorthanded goals and 1 game-winner on 150 shots at 6.67 per cent, and 50 penalty minutes. A career high in goals and points.
52.9 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,331 minutes, the 75th percentile. His ice went 71-59 against an expectation of 61.05-54.32 — four goals scored above expectation and six conceded above it.
The Finesse Game
150 attempts at a median of 48 feet, with 68 per cent from beyond 40 and 8 per cent from inside 20, converting at 6.67 per cent. Ten goals is more than a third of the twenty-six he has scored in 313 NHL games.
19 assists. He moves the puck quickly and he will carry it out when the pass is not there, and the skating is the reason he plays nineteen minutes a night at 5-11.
The Physical Game
5-11 and 191 and light. He defends with feet and stick and he will not clear a crease against a heavy forward.
50 penalty minutes in 81 games and 142 in 313 for his career is a moderate rate, and a share of it is the stick foul that follows losing a step. He is trusted a man short and scored 2 shorthanded goals.
The Intangibles
Undrafted, out of Bowling Green, and 313 NHL games and 96 points at 29 across three clubs, with a career minus-26 accumulated almost entirely in Los Angeles.
He was signed here in the summer. An undrafted defenceman playing nineteen minutes a night is a real career, and he and Shayne Gostisbehere are between them what this club received for Brett Pesce and Brady Skjei.
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.
- durable· was available
81 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“**Undrafted**, out of Bowling Green, and **313 NHL games and 96 points at 29** across three clubs, with a career minus-26 accumulated almost entirely in Los Angeles.”
“**He moves the puck quickly and he will carry it out when the pass is not there**, and the skating is the reason he plays nineteen minutes a night at 5-11.”
“**He defends with feet and stick and he will not clear a crease against a heavy forward.**”
“50 penalty minutes in 81 games and 142 in 313 for his career is a moderate rate, and a share of it is **the stick foul that follows losing a step.**”
“**He is trusted a man short and scored 2 shorthanded goals.**”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,331 minutes
- Expected goals
- 52.9%
- 75th pct
- Shot attempts
- 53.7%
- 83rd 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: 71 for, 59 against. Expected: 61.0 and 54.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 44 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 65 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, 2023-24 · 81 games
- Top speed
- 23.0 mph
- 93rd pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.62 a game
- Distance
- 2.76 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 92.8 mph
- 57th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.7
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.2
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
2023-24 with PHI · 1040 minutes at five-on-five
- Nick Seeler65%
- Egor Zamula11%
- Cam York11%
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 52.9% — 0.6 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- 1,331 minutes at five-on-five — 91st percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nick Seeler | 54.0% | 51.9% | 51.6% |
| Joel Farabee | 55.4% | 52.1% | 50.4% |
| Cam Atkinson | 50.5% | 53.6% | 49.2% |
54.0% together, 51.9% for him apart and 51.6% for Seeler apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.
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
205 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 10 of them goals. His median goal came from 31 feet. 8% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 68% from beyond forty.