This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Zach Werenski

Fifty-seven points and 24:27 a night — the largest single source of offence on the club, by a distance.

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	CBJ	13	3	5	8	-6	0	0	0	0	41	7.3	23:36
2023-24	CBJ	70	11	46	57	0	22	2	0	0	202	5.5	24:27
2024-25 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	486	90	212	302	-8	115	20	1	12	1288	7.0	23:24

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

11 goals and 46 assists in 70 games — 57 points at 24:27 a night, even, with 2 power-play goals on 202 shots at 5.45 per cent, and 22 penalty minutes.

Twenty-four twenty-seven is the most ice of anyone on the roster and 46 assists is the largest single source of offence on the club. A defenceman finishing even on a team that conceded 300 goals is its own statement.

48.1 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,366 minutes, the 39th percentile. His ice went 80-69 against an expectation of 63.85-68.88 — ten fewer goals conceded than the chances predicted.

The Finesse Game

202 attempts at a median of 44 feet, with 58 per cent from beyond 40 and 11 per cent from inside 20, converting at 5.45 per cent — the second-largest shot volume on the roster and it comes from the blue line.

He carries the puck out of his own zone rather than passing it out, and the skating is what makes 24:27 possible against the other side’s best. He walks the line and holds the puck until a forechecker commits.

46 assists and 212 in 486 career games. This is a first-pairing offensive defenceman on any roster in the league.

The Physical Game

6-2 and 214. He defends with skating rather than force and he does not clear his crease. The gap control is good and the body is not part of it.

22 penalty minutes in 70 games and 115 in 486 for his career is one of the lowest rates on any blue line in this edition, and it is low because he is beaten cleanly rather than forced into a hook.

The Intangibles

Eighth overall in 2015, out of Michigan, and 486 games and 302 points at 27, all of them here, on clubs that have made the playoffs twice.

Fifty-seven points in seventy games from a defenceman on a twenty-ninth-place team is a genuinely rare line, and the shoulder that has cost him most of two seasons is the reason it is seventy and not eighty-two.

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.

workhorse· carries the load at even strength
19:31 a game at five-on-five, 97th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
transitiona strength· carries it out; gains the line under control
“**He carries the puck out of his own zone rather than passing it out**, and the skating is what makes 24:27 possible against the other side's best.”
playmakera strength· passes up the shot a scorer takes
“**He walks the line and holds the puck until a forechecker commits.**”
clears-the-creasehe lacks it· moves grown men off the front of his net
“**He defends with skating rather than force and he does not clear his crease.** The gap control is good and the body is not part of it.”
punishinghe lacks it· finishes checks; hurts people legally
“**He defends with skating rather than force and he does not clear his crease.** The gap control is good and the body is not part of it.”
fouls-when-beatenhe lacks it· the stick foul that follows losing a step
“**22 penalty minutes in 70 games and 115 in 486 for his career** is one of the lowest rates on any blue line in this edition, and it is low because he is beaten cleanly rather than forced into a hook.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,366 minutes

Expected goals: 48.1%; 39th pct
Shot attempts: 48.8%; 44th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 80 for, 69 against. Expected: 63.9 and 68.9.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

80th

Numbers

39th

The report ranks him 41 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 76 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, 2023-24 · 70 games

Top speed: 23.5 mph; 98th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 1.27 a game
Distance: 3.50 miles a game
Hardest shot: 96.2 mph; 78th pct

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

2023-24 · 1366 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: CBJ took 45.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 48.1% — 2.2 above the club he did it on.
The role: Third pair, 1,366 minutes at five-on-five — 92nd percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Johnny Gaudreau	51.1%	46.3%	48.6%
Damon Severson	48.1%	48.1%	48.5%
Boone Jenner	49.1%	47.7%	47.8%

51.1% together, 46.3% for him apart and 48.6% for Gaudreau apart. He was worse away from Gaudreau, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Gaudreau did.

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

283 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 11 of them goals. His median goal came from 21 feet. 12% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 58% from beyond forty.