This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Zach Werenski
Columbus Blue Jackets Defense
Twenty-five forty a night, the 97th percentile, on the club that allowed the highest rate of expected goals against in the league.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-17 | CBJ | 78 | 11 | 36 | 47 | +17 | 14 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 188 | 5.9 | 20:55 |
| 2017-18 | CBJ | 77 | 16 | 21 | 37 | +8 | 16 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 207 | 7.7 | 22:35 |
| 2018-19 | CBJ | 82 | 11 | 33 | 44 | -12 | 18 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 168 | 6.6 | 22:54 |
| 2019-20 | CBJ | 63 | 20 | 21 | 41 | +9 | 10 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 187 | 10.7 | 23:59 |
| 2020-21 | CBJ | 35 | 7 | 13 | 20 | -9 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 79 | 8.9 | 24:22 |
| 2021-22 | CBJ | 68 | 11 | 37 | 48 | -15 | 22 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 216 | 5.1 | 25:40 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 403 | 76 | 161 | 237 | -2 | 93 | 18 | 1 | 12 | 1045 | 7.3 | 23:13 |
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
11 goals and 37 assists in 68 games — 48 points at 25:40 a night, the 97th percentile among defencemen — with 216 shots and a minus-15.
45.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,344 minutes, the 15th percentile among defencemen. His ice went 51-74 against an expectation of 54.48-65.04: the club scored three fewer than the chances promised and allowed nine more.
Columbus allowed 3.080 expected goals against per 60 at even strength, more than any other club in the league, and finished 28th in goals against with 300. Twenty-five minutes a night of that is what the minus-15 is measuring.
The Finesse Game
7.43 shots per 60 is the 197th of the 202 qualified defencemen and 216 shots from a defenceman in 68 games is a first-unit volume. 3:13 a night on the power play is the 95th percentile, and 29 per cent of his points came on it.
1.39 even-strength points per 60 is the 90th percentile among defencemen. The median shot travels 43 feet and 18 per cent of them come from the slot, the 89th percentile — he walks the line rather than firing from the point, which is why the volume converts at all.
The Physical Game
1.13 hits per 60 is the 2nd percentile among defencemen, and 22 penalty minutes in 68 games. He does not defend with his body and there is no version of this player that does.
22.9 mph and 8.68 miles per 60, the 93rd and 76th percentiles among defencemen. He escapes pressure rather than absorbing it, and at 25 minutes a night that is a great deal of escaping.
The Intangibles
Eighth overall in 2015, 403 games, 76 goals and 237 points, and he has cleared 70 games three times in six seasons.
Patrik Laine took 49.7 per cent of the chances with Werenski on the ice and 35.0 per cent without him, across 617 attempts together and 944 apart. Both are real samples and the gap is fourteen points. Columbus signed a 115-point winger in July; what this number says is that the club’s ability to play a scoring line at five-on-five currently runs through one defenceman.
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
- he lacks itraised, and he does not have it
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
17.9% of his attempts in the slot, 90th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
- workhorse· carries the load at even strength
19:46 a game at five-on-five, 96th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
- sheltered· is started in the attacking end
59% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 91st percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
“He escapes pressure rather than absorbing it, and at 25 minutes a night that is a great deal of escaping.”
“1.13 hits per 60 is the 2nd percentile among defencemen”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,344 minutes
- Expected goals
- 45.6%
- 21st pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.8%
- 53rd 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: 51 for, 74 against. Expected: 54.5 and 65.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 46 points above where the numbers do. 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 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 64 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.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2021-22 · 68 games
- Top speed
- 22.9 mph
- 95th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.13 a game
- Distance
- 3.71 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 91.9 mph
- 47th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.5
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.4
A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.
Usual linemates
2021-22 · 1344 minutes at five-on-five
- Jake Bean38%
- Andrew Peeke38%
- Adam Boqvist10%
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, 2021-22
- The club
- CBJ took 44.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 45.6% — 0.8 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second pair, 1,344 minutes at five-on-five — 91st percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jake Bean | 44.1% | 46.5% | 41.6% |
| Andrew Peeke | 44.0% | 46.5% | 43.6% |
| Gustav Nyquist | 47.1% | 44.8% | 41.2% |
44.1% together, 46.5% for him apart and 41.6% for Bean 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
312 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 11 of them goals. His median goal came from 42 feet. 12% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 55% from beyond forty.