This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Thomas Harley
Dallas Stars Defense
Forty-seven points and a plus-28 at 22, in a first full season on the second-best defensive club in hockey.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-22 | DAL | 34 | 1 | 3 | 4 | -4 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 36 | 2.8 | 13:41 |
| 2022-23 | DAL | 6 | 0 | 2 | 2 | +5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0.0 | 16:48 |
| 2023-24 | DAL | 79 | 15 | 32 | 47 | +28 | 18 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 144 | 10.4 | 21:01 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 119 | 16 | 37 | 53 | +29 | 26 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 188 | 8.5 | 18:43 |
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
Seventy-nine games, 15 goals and 32 assists for 47 points, 1 on the power play and 1 shorthanded, 21:01 a night and plus-28. He took 54.7 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,460 minutes — more than anybody on the club — the 86th percentile, and his ice went 68-48 against an expectation of 65.14-53.85.
Forty-seven points from a 22-year-old defenceman is a genuine first-pair season and it came with the highest ice-time total on a club that finished second in the league.
The Finesse Game
He carries the puck out under pressure, and at 6-3 and 214 he is much harder to strip than his partner. The skating is close to Miro Heiskanen’s and the frame means a forechecker who arrives late simply bounces off.
Fifteen goals on 144 shots at 10.42 per cent is a remarkable conversion rate for a defenceman — 9 per cent of his attempts came from inside 20 feet, so most of it is the point shot finding its way through. It will not repeat at that rate. Thirty-two assists in 79 games is the more durable half.
The Physical Game
Eighteen penalty minutes in 79 games at 21:01 a night is a very low rate. He defends by closing the gap early and he is big enough that closing it works.
He is not a punishing defenceman and does not finish checks for their own sake. At 214 pounds the potential is there and the inclination is not, which on this club is a reasonable division of labour.
The Intangibles
Eighteenth overall in 2019 out of Syracuse, four years in the organisation, and 119 career games at 23. He is plus-29 across all of them.
Dallas drafted Heiskanen, Harley, Robertson, Hintz, Johnston, Lindell, Stankoven and Oettinger. He is the newest piece of as good a draft record as any club in this book, and the season just gone is the one that proved it.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,460 minutes
- Expected goals
- 54.7%
- 86th pct
- Shot attempts
- 55.5%
- 90th 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: 68 for, 48 against. Expected: 65.1 and 53.9.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 21 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 201 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
2023-24 · 1460 minutes at five-on-five
- Jani Hakanpäänow TOR13%
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
- DAL took 54.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 54.7% — 0.1 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,460 minutes at five-on-five — 96th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Miro Heiskanen | 59.6% | 51.5% | 55.9% |
| Jason Robertson | 59.7% | 52.7% | 56.1% |
| Wyatt Johnston | 55.3% | 54.5% | 58.7% |
59.6% together, 51.5% for him apart and 55.9% for Heiskanen apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
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
208 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 15 of them goals. His median goal came from 27 feet. 9% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 60% from beyond forty.