This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Shayne Gostisbehere
Detroit Red Wings Defense
Sixty slap shots — the most of any player in five clubs — and five goals from beyond forty feet.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-15 | PHI | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0.0 | 12:34 |
| 2015-16 | PHI | 64 | 17 | 29 | 46 | +8 | 24 | 8 | 0 | 5 | 152 | 11.2 | 20:05 |
| 2016-17 | PHI | 76 | 7 | 32 | 39 | -21 | 32 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 198 | 3.5 | 19:36 |
| 2017-18 | PHI | 78 | 13 | 52 | 65 | +10 | 25 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 221 | 5.9 | 21:27 |
| 2018-19 | PHI | 78 | 9 | 28 | 37 | -20 | 22 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 180 | 5.0 | 19:40 |
| 2019-20 | PHI | 42 | 5 | 7 | 12 | -4 | 20 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 73 | 6.9 | 18:18 |
| 2020-21 | PHI | 41 | 9 | 11 | 20 | -2 | 6 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 85 | 10.6 | 19:56 |
| 2021-22 | ARI | 82 | 14 | 37 | 51 | -23 | 26 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 151 | 9.3 | 22:11 |
| 2022-23 | ARI/CAR | 75 | 13 | 28 | 41 | -5 | 32 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 155 | 8.4 | 20:49 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 538 | 87 | 224 | 311 | -59 | 187 | 34 | 2 | 15 | 1217 | 7.1 | 20:24 |
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
13 goals and 28 assists in 75 games across Arizona and Carolina, minus-5, 20:49 a night, 155 shots.
51.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,259 minutes, the 62nd percentile, with his ice at 52-55 against an expectation of 52.98-50.04. Almost exactly as the chances predicted at the offensive end and five worse at the defensive one.
Nine seasons, 538 games, 224 assists and 87 goals. He has scored 13 or more in four different years.
The Finesse Game
155 shots at a median of 49 feet, 67 per cent from beyond forty and 8 per cent from inside twenty.
From beyond forty feet: 93 shots on goal, five goals, 5.38 per cent — well above the 3.17 per cent league rate for a defenceman.
And the reason is in the shot-type record: 60 of his attempts were slap shots, the most of any player across these five clubs. This book has spent a season documenting the slap shot disappearing — 17.39 per cent of unblocked shots in 2017-18 down to 12.07 per cent last season, and among defencemen 35.89 per cent down to 24.17 per cent, which is where almost all of the decline lives. Gostisbehere is the man still taking them, and the yield says it still works for him.
The registered shot speed is 99.5 mph at the 96th percentile, which for once is measuring what it appears to measure.
The Physical Game
5-11 and 183 pounds, and small for a defenceman playing twenty-one minutes. 22.7 mph at the 73rd percentile, 0.3 bursts over twenty a game at the 16th, 2.91 miles a game at the 75th.
He covers ground without ever reaching speed, which is the shape of most first-pair defencemen and, at his size, a genuine limitation: he cannot recover with a stride and he cannot win a contest along the wall.
32 penalty minutes in 75 games. The defensive record has been the criticism for nine years and the 62nd-percentile share last season was one of his better answers to it.
The Intangibles
78th overall in 2012, out of Union College and a national championship there, and a 46-point rookie season in Philadelphia that has framed everything since.
Seven Philadelphia years, Arizona, a deadline move to Carolina, and now Detroit on a one-year deal at 30.
He is a power-play defenceman with one elite tool. Detroit finished 23rd in power-play expected goals and 31st in even-strength chances; the fit is obvious and so is the defensive cost.
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.
- 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.
“224 assists and 87 goals”
“he cannot recover with a stride and he cannot win a contest along the wall”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 1,259 minutes
- Expected goals
- 51.4%
- 62nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 51.6%
- 67th 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: 52 for, 55 against. Expected: 53.0 and 50.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 33 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 638 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.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2022-23 · 75 games
- Top speed
- 22.7 mph
- 89th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.35 a game
- Distance
- 2.91 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 99.5 mph
- 94th 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 90.0
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
2022-23 with ARI · 931 minutes at five-on-five
- Joshua Brown20%
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
- CAR took 58.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.4% — 7.5 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 1,259 minutes at five-on-five — 88th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jakob Chychrun | 48.6% | 53.6% | 50.9% |
| Clayton Keller | 48.9% | 53.0% | 48.5% |
| Nick Schmaltz | 53.0% | 50.7% | 49.1% |
48.6% together, 53.6% for him apart and 50.9% for Chychrun apart. He was better away from Chychrun, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Chychrun.
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
226 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 12 of them goals. His median goal came from 33 feet. 8% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 67% from beyond forty.