Armchair Hockey Scout Beta
44

Travis Dermott

Edmonton Oilers Defense

The 21st percentile of chances in Arizona, and a career that has been going the wrong way for four years.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2017-18TOR3711213+168000541.816:00
2018-19TOR6441317-522000984.117:18
2019-20TOR564711+1437001656.217:19
2020-21TOR51246-119000365.613:13
2021-22TOR/VAN60257+914001464.315:20
2022-23VAN11101-42000714.313:45
2023-24ARI50257-1426000385.317:17
2024-25 so far
Career329164662+151280023444.716:03

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

50 games in Arizona, 2 goals and 5 assists for 7 points, 26 penalty minutes, 17:17 a night and minus-14. He took 45.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 722 minutes, the 21st percentile, and his ice went 19-35 against an expectation of 26.83-32.84, all of it with the Coyotes.

Eight goals of scoring that did not arrive and two more conceded than the chances called for, on the worst chance share of any defenceman who will dress for Edmonton. He arrives as depth and the numbers say depth is the right word.

The Finesse Game

38 shots at a median of 53 feet with 77 per cent from beyond 40, converted at 5.3 per cent. There is nothing here.

46 career assists in 329 games. He was a puck-moving defenceman in Toronto and the puck-moving has been gone for three seasons. The first pass is now the safe one every time.

The Physical Game

He is 6-0 and 200 and finishes a check without changing anybody’s mind.

He blocks shots and defends positionally. 26 penalty minutes in 50 games is an ordinary rate and most of them come from being late.

The Intangibles

A second-round pick in 2015 out of Newmarket, seven seasons, and 62 points in 329 games. He lost a large part of a season to a head injury and has not been the same player since.

At 27 there is still time for a seventh defenceman to become a sixth. The 21st percentile in Arizona is the argument against it.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 722 minutes

Expected goals
45%
21st pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
45%
17th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 19 for, 35 against. Expected: 26.8 and 32.8.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
10th
Numbers
21st

The two rank him within 11 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 316 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 55 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 with ARI · 722 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, 2023-24

The club
ARI took 48.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 45.0% — 3.9 below the club he did it on.
The role
Third pair, 722 minutes at five-on-five — 33rd percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Mathew Dumba40.8%47.9%48.2%
Lawson Crouse39.7%46.9%52.2%
Josh Brown41.8%46.2%41.9%

40.8% together, 47.9% for him apart and 48.2% for Dumba apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.

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

56 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 49 feet. 5% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 77% from beyond forty.