This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Seth Jones
Chicago Blackhawks Defense
One hundred and ten shots from beyond forty feet, two goals, and a minus-38.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013-14 | NSH | 77 | 6 | 19 | 25 | -23 | 24 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 100 | 6.0 | 19:37 |
| 2014-15 | NSH | 82 | 8 | 19 | 27 | +3 | 20 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 123 | 6.5 | 19:53 |
| 2015-16 | NSH/CBJ | 81 | 3 | 28 | 31 | -14 | 22 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 157 | 1.9 | 22:05 |
| 2016-17 | CBJ | 75 | 12 | 30 | 42 | +6 | 24 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 152 | 7.9 | 23:24 |
| 2017-18 | CBJ | 78 | 16 | 41 | 57 | +10 | 30 | 7 | 0 | 4 | 249 | 6.4 | 24:36 |
| 2018-19 | CBJ | 75 | 9 | 37 | 46 | +1 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 184 | 4.9 | 25:49 |
| 2019-20 | CBJ | 56 | 6 | 24 | 30 | +10 | 20 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 126 | 4.8 | 25:17 |
| 2020-21 | CBJ | 56 | 5 | 23 | 28 | -18 | 26 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 141 | 3.5 | 25:14 |
| 2021-22 | CHI | 78 | 5 | 46 | 51 | -37 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 194 | 2.6 | 26:13 |
| 2022-23 | CHI | 72 | 12 | 25 | 37 | -38 | 30 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 178 | 6.7 | 24:27 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 730 | 82 | 292 | 374 | -100 | 252 | 19 | 1 | 15 | 1604 | 5.1 | 23:32 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 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
12 goals and 25 assists in 72 games — 37 points at 24:27 a night, minus-38, on a club that finished 30th and scored 204 goals, fewest in the league.
46.7 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,322 minutes, the 30th percentile — comfortably the best figure among Chicago’s regular defencemen and a long way from good. His ice went 50-74 against an expectation of 52.55-59.97, which is fourteen goals worse than the chances predicted at the defensive end.
That fourteen is the club’s goaltending, not his positioning. Chicago’s goaltending graded minus-21.1, thirtieth in the league, and a defenceman playing 24 minutes a night in front of a .894 collects the difference in his plus-minus.
The Finesse Game
178 attempts at a median of 47 feet, 65 per cent from beyond forty and 11 per cent from inside twenty, off a 96.2 mph shot at the 84th percentile.
From beyond forty feet he put 110 shots on goal and scored two — 1.82 per cent. From inside forty he took 65 and scored ten. The long shot is not merely low-yield for him; it is the single largest pile of wasted attempts on this roster, and it is the thing his usage is built around.
The league rate for a defenceman shooting from beyond forty was 3.19 per cent last season. He is half of it, on more volume than almost anyone. The 25 assists are the real skill and 292 of them in 730 career games says the first pass has always been there.
The Physical Game
6-4 and 213, and the tracking finds the pattern this book keeps meeting: 3.34 miles a game at the 95th percentile against a top speed of 21.8 mph at the 26th. He covers enormous ground without ever being fast, which describes a defenceman skating to recover rather than to attack.
30 penalty minutes across 72 games at 24 minutes a night is a low number and reads as a man defending with his stick and his reach rather than his body.
The Intangibles
Fourth overall in 2013, a Norris candidate in Columbus, and the largest contract on a club that spent the season losing on purpose.
The minus-38 will follow him and most of it is not his. The 110 shots from the point are his, and so is the fact that at 29, on a club with nothing else, he could not drag the possession above 47 per cent.
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
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.
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
46.7% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 40.0% for his club in the minutes he sat: +6.7, 94th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 1,322 minutes
- Expected goals
- 46.7%
- 30th pct
- Shot attempts
- 47.5%
- 34th 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: 50 for, 74 against. Expected: 52.5 and 60.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 14 points of one another. 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.
Both bars are percentiles among the 141 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 61 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
2022-23 · 1322 minutes at five-on-five
- Jake McCabenow TOR40%
- Caleb Jonesnow COL28%
- Jack Johnsonnow COL18%
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, 2022-23
- The club
- CHI took 42.4% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 46.7% — 4.3 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,322 minutes at five-on-five — 91st percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jake McCabe | 47.5% | 46.2% | 50.3% |
| Andreas Athanasiou | 51.1% | 44.8% | 38.1% |
| Jason Dickinson | 45.7% | 47.1% | 43.0% |
47.5% together, 46.2% for him apart and 50.3% for McCabe 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
238 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 12 of them goals. His median goal came from 30 feet. 11% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 65% from beyond forty.