This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Sean Walker
Carolina Hurricanes Defense
A 57.4 per cent chance share, a minus-7, and 15 goals of finishing and goaltending disappearing from underneath him.
| 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 | CAR | 82 | 5 | 11 | 16 | -7 | 46 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 144 | 3.5 | 16:50 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 395 | 31 | 81 | 112 | -33 | 188 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 680 | 4.6 | 17:22 |
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
5 goals and 11 assists in 82 games for 16 points, minus-7, on 16:50 a night.
56.8 per cent at five-on-five, the 95th percentile, over 1,194 minutes. His on-ice goals were 44-46 against an expected 57-44 — the largest gap on the roster between what a player’s minutes created and what the scoreboard recorded, and it produced a minus-7.
The Finesse Game
Modest. 144 shots and 5 goals, two-thirds of them from beyond 40 feet, and a first pass that is quick without being creative.
He moves the puck and joins the rush occasionally and does not attempt anything difficult. On a third pair on this club, that is the entire job description.
The Physical Game
5-11 and 191, and small for a defenceman. He defends with feet and stick rather than weight and does not clear a net front.
46 penalty minutes over 82 games is a high total for a third-pair defenceman and reflects a man who is occasionally overmatched physically.
The Intangibles
Undrafted, three organisations, and a career of being a useful third-pair defenceman who is worth more to a possession team than to anybody else.
At 31 the projection is what happened. The minus-7 should be ignored entirely: a 97th-percentile chance share with a negative rating is a goaltending fact, not a defenceman one.
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
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“Undrafted, three organisations, and a career of being a useful third-pair defenceman who is worth more to a possession team than to anybody else.”
“does not clear a net front”
“He defends with feet and stick rather than weight”
“46 penalty minutes over 82 games is a high total for a third-pair defenceman and reflects a man who is occasionally overmatched physically.”
“a first pass that is quick without being creative”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,194 minutes
- Expected goals
- 56.8%
- 96th pct
- Shot attempts
- 60.5%
- 99th 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: 44 for, 46 against. Expected: 57.4 and 43.6.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 66 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 — 69 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 · 82 games
- Top speed
- 23.0 mph
- 92nd pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.12 a game
- Distance
- 2.48 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 91.4 mph
- 57th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.6
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 89.7
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 · 1194 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
- CAR took 55.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 56.8% — 0.9 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 1,194 minutes at five-on-five — 84th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shayne Gostisbehere | 60.6% | 49.2% | 57.9% |
| Jesperi Kotkaniemi | 57.0% | 56.7% | 54.0% |
| Eric Robinson | 55.3% | 57.5% | 56.4% |
60.6% together, 49.2% for him apart and 57.9% for Gostisbehere apart. He was worse away from Gostisbehere, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Gostisbehere 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
220 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 5 of them goals. His median goal came from 40 feet. 6% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 66% from beyond forty.