This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Stefan Noesen
Carolina Hurricanes Right Wing
Thirteen goals, and every one of them from inside twenty feet.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-15 | ANA | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 6:54 |
| 2015-16 | ANA | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 10:02 |
| 2016-17 | ANA/NJD | 44 | 8 | 2 | 10 | +6 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 63 | 12.7 | 11:07 |
| 2017-18 | NJD | 72 | 13 | 14 | 27 | +12 | 36 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 127 | 10.2 | 13:17 |
| 2018-19 | NJD | 41 | 3 | 5 | 8 | -19 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 64 | 4.7 | 12:44 |
| 2019-20 | PIT/SJS | 40 | 7 | 2 | 9 | -1 | 32 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 67 | 10.4 | 11:32 |
| 2020-21 | SJS/TOR | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0.0 | 9:37 |
| 2021-22 | CAR | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0.0 | 14:20 |
| 2022-23 | CAR | 78 | 13 | 23 | 36 | +11 | 32 | 7 | 0 | 4 | 134 | 9.7 | 12:20 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 285 | 44 | 46 | 90 | +10 | 154 | 8 | 0 | 10 | 464 | 9.5 | 12:16 |
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 23 assists in 78 games — 36 points at 12:20 a night, plus-11, with 32 penalty minutes and 7 power-play goals on 134 shots at 9.70 per cent.
63.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 746 minutes, the 99th percentile. His ice went 31-15 against an expectation of 37.88-21.68 — six goals short at the offensive end and six better at the defensive one, on a fourth line.
He had played eight NHL games in the two seasons before this one.
The Finesse Game
134 attempts at a median of 13 feet, with 68 per cent from inside twenty. Thirteen goals on 99 shots from inside twenty feet, and nothing at all on the 32 he took from further out.
That is the purest shot chart in this chapter and possibly the point of the whole club. Carolina led the league in generating chances and finished 31st at converting them, and Noesen is the man who solved it by refusing to shoot from anywhere else. Every goal he scored came from a place where goals are scored.
Seven power-play goals at twelve minutes a night is the other half: he is the net-front man on the first unit, and 36 points from a fourth-line role is what that job is worth when it is done properly.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 205, and the tracking says he is slow — 21.4 mph at the 11th percentile and 1.90 miles a game at the 11th, both near the bottom of the league.
He is not quick, he does not cover ground, and he plays the most physically punishing role available: he lives in the blue paint and takes what comes with it. The numbers are a fair description of a player whose value is entirely in being willing to stand somewhere unpleasant and not move.
The Intangibles
A first-round pick at 21st overall by Ottawa in 2011 who was out of the league at 28 — two games in 2021-22, six in 2020-21, and 41 the season before that.
He is 30 with 285 career games and 90 career points, and 36 of those points came last season. That is not a breakout; it is a man finding the one job he could do and doing it on the best team in the league.
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
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.
- slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
75.4% of his attempts in the slot, 99th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
- durable· was available
78 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
63.6% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 57.8% for his club in the minutes he sat: +5.8, 90th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
- sheltered· is started in the attacking end
64% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 95th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
“he lives in the blue paint and takes what comes with it”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 746 minutes
- Expected goals
- 63.6%
- 100th pct
- Shot attempts
- 62.4%
- 100th 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: 31 for, 15 against. Expected: 37.9 and 21.7.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 26 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 141 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 67 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 · 746 minutes at five-on-five
- Derek Stepanoff the roster46%
- Paul Stastnyoff the roster32%
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 63.6% — 4.7 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Fourth line, 746 minutes at five-on-five — 33rd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Derek Stepan | 65.0% | 62.2% | 62.5% |
| Paul Stastny | 58.7% | 66.4% | 61.6% |
| Jalen Chatfield | 61.8% | 64.5% | 60.0% |
65.0% together, 62.2% for him apart and 62.5% for Stepan 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
203 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 13 of them goals. His median goal came from 8 feet. 68% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 12% from beyond forty.