William Carrier

This Season So Far

The 2022-23 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

63 games, 9 goals and 11 assists at 11:37 a night, plus-7, thirty-four penalty minutes, 120 shots. Fifty-seventh overall in 2013 by St Louis — the second round — six seasons, 318 games, 74 points.

The Finesse Game

Seventy per cent of his attempts came from inside twenty feet at a 16-foot median, the 7th-shortest of the 393, at 6-2 and 214 pounds.

9.83 shots per 60 is the 87th percentile on an eleven-and-a-half-minute shift, which is a lot of pucks for a fourth-line winger, at 7.5 per cent.

1.67 even-strength points per 60 is the 41st percentile and none of his twenty points came on the power play — he has none in 318 career games.

56.1 per cent of the expected goals is the 50th-highest of all 393 forwards and 55.6 per cent of the attempts the 88th percentile. On eleven and a half minutes a night, that is a first-line share out of a fourth-line shift — and Michael Amadio, beside him for much of it, was fractionally higher still.

His ice went 34-26 against an expectation of 36.51-28.53 — two and a half short in front and two fewer against.

The Physical Game

13.03 hits per 60 is the 21st-most of the 393 forwards who played forty games, off a 23.5 mph top speed that is the 16th-fastest of the 365 the chips measure.

1.07 penalties taken per 60 against 0.82 drawn, and thirty-four penalty minutes in sixty-three games — 158 across a 318-game career.

1.97 blocks per 60 is the 62nd percentile.

The Intangibles

His shot is 79.4 mph, the 5th-softest of the 365 tracked forwards. Only Paul Stastny, Derek Ryan, Mattias Janmark and Travis Boyd released one slower.

Put that beside a top speed inside the fastest twenty in the league and the player resolves completely. He arrives first, he arrives hard, and whatever he does when he gets there it is not shooting from range — seventy per cent of his attempts are from inside twenty feet because there is nowhere else they would go in.

11.1 bursts over twenty miles an hour per 60 is the 90th percentile against 9.35 miles per 60 at the 25th, which is the same sentence again: all sprint, no distance.

He is 27, a second-round pick, with seventy-four points in 318 games and five seasons in Vegas. Nine goals is a career high. The speed and the hits are worth a fourth-line job anywhere in the league, and the 79.4 is why it will never be a third-line one.