This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Troy Stecher
Arizona Coyotes Defense
Undrafted, 5-10, 440 NHL games, and the 30th percentile in top speed.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-17 | VAN | 71 | 3 | 21 | 24 | -16 | 25 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 125 | 2.4 | 19:59 |
| 2017-18 | VAN | 68 | 1 | 10 | 11 | -7 | 35 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 94 | 1.1 | 18:49 |
| 2018-19 | VAN | 78 | 2 | 21 | 23 | +9 | 32 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 105 | 1.9 | 19:55 |
| 2019-20 | VAN | 69 | 5 | 12 | 17 | +10 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 86 | 5.8 | 15:21 |
| 2020-21 | DET | 44 | 3 | 8 | 11 | -13 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 55 | 5.5 | 17:19 |
| 2021-22 | DET/LAK | 29 | 1 | 2 | 3 | -7 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 50 | 2.0 | 16:40 |
| 2022-23 | ARI/CGY | 81 | 3 | 11 | 14 | -6 | 44 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 88 | 3.4 | 16:22 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 440 | 18 | 85 | 103 | -30 | 193 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 603 | 3.0 | 17:55 |
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
3 goals and 11 assists in 81 games split between Arizona and Calgary — 14 points at 16:22 a night, minus-6, on 88 shots and 44 penalty minutes.
44.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,141 minutes, the 19th percentile. His ice went 33-45 against an expectation of 41.54-51.13 — eight goals of scoring missing and six fewer conceded than the chances predicted, which is a third pair being defended better than the model expected and supported worse.
The Finesse Game
88 attempts at a median of 49 feet, 65 per cent from beyond 40, converting at 3.41 per cent. 18 goals in 440 career games. There is no offensive game and there never has been.
The passing is safe rather than creative. He will not lose the puck in his own end and he will not create anything from it either, and 85 career assists in seven seasons is the honest measure of that.
The Physical Game
5-10 and 184, which is small for a defenceman, and 193 penalty minutes in 440 games says he defends with more force than the size suggests.
The skating is the interesting part, because the measurement and the career disagree. He is at the 30th percentile in top speed and the 22nd in sprints over twenty miles an hour, which is slow. A 5-10 defenceman does not play 440 NHL games without the feet working somewhere, and since it is demonstrably not straight-line speed, it has to be the part no feed measures — the pivot, the tight turn, the recovery in a small space. That is an inference from survival rather than an observation, and it is stated as one.
The Intangibles
Undrafted, out of North Dakota, and 440 NHL games later he has played for four clubs. Nothing about that was likely and it is the most impressive line in his file.
He is 29. He is exactly the veteran a rebuilding club should have on its third pair: he will take the minutes nobody wants, he will not complain about them, and when the young defencemen are ready he can be moved for a pick without anybody being upset.
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.
- durable· was available
81 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“Undrafted, out of North Dakota, and 440 NHL games later he has played for four clubs.”
“A 5-10 defenceman does not play 440 NHL games without the feet working somewhere, and since it is demonstrably not straight-line speed, it has to be the part no feed measures”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 1,141 minutes
- Expected goals
- 44.8%
- 19th pct
- Shot attempts
- 45.6%
- 20th 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: 33 for, 45 against. Expected: 41.5 and 51.1.
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 58 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 58 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 · 855 minutes at five-on-five
- Patrik Nemethoff the roster47%
- Joshua Brown13%
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
- CGY took 55.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 44.8% — 10.4 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 1,141 minutes at five-on-five — 77th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Patrik Nemeth | 39.5% | 47.3% | 41.5% |
| Nick Ritchie | 48.0% | 43.8% | 45.7% |
| Christian Fischer | 42.9% | 45.3% | 43.0% |
39.5% together, 47.3% for him apart and 41.5% for Nemeth apart. He was better away from Nemeth, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Nemeth.
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
111 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 3 of them goals. His median goal came from 25 feet. 14% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 65% from beyond forty.