As the Capitals’ supposed 13th forward, Brett Leason sure did play in a lot of hockey games last season.
By the Numbers
| 36 | games played |
| 9.0 | time on ice per game |
| 3 | goals |
| 3 | assists |
| 52.1 | 5-on-5 shot-attempt percentage |
| 53.5 | 5-on-5 expected goal percentage |
| 50.0 | 5-on-5 goal percentage |
Visualization by HockeyViz
About this visualization: This series of charts made by Micah Blake McCurdy of hockeyviz.com shows lots of information for the player over the season. A short description of each chart:
- Most common teammates during 5-on-5
- Ice time per game, split up by game state
- 5-on-5 adjusted shot attempts by the team (black) and opponents (red)
- 5-on-5 adjusted shooting percentage by the team (black) and opponents (red)
- Individual scoring events by the player
- 5-on-5 adjusted offensive (black) and defensive (red) zone starts
Peter’s Take
Man, I do not have anything interesting to say about Brett Leason. Functionally a 13th forward, Leason got a lot of ice time this season as the team struggled with injury and illness. That means we got to see a lot of a player who is really good at slowing games down.
The HockeyViz heatmaps above show where shot attempts happen when Leason is on the ice – red meaning more shots from the spot, blue meaning fewer. For Leason, there’s a lot of blue dead spots on both ends of the ice.
It’s not a bad thing to be a low-event hockey player, to be what the Scientologists call a suppressive person. If you’re a coach needing a fill-in while some other player is getting a back-iotomy or whatever, having the replacement player be boring is not the worst-case scenario. But I’m not gonna pretend like I’m psyched when I see ol’ 49 getting a sweater. Especially when he was playing instead of more interesting players.
Leason is a restricted free-agent, so odds are he’s back next season. If we see a lot of him, that’ll be an indication that things are not going well in Washington. When we do see him, and maybe we’re feeling a little unstimulated, just remind yourself that that’s intentional.
According to Orson Welles
Brett Leason on RMNB
- Leason got called up in October when Oshie got banged up.
- He made his NHL debut on October 29. There was a rookie lap.
Love a rookie lap. @Bleason7 pic.twitter.com/Fzk4cosrWD
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) October 29, 2021
- On November 1, Leason notched his first NHL goal.
- For a moment there, there was some rookie magic.
- But Oshie’s return to the active roster sent Leason back to Hershey.
- Then he bounced up and down the lineup a million times. I cannot link to every single one; I will actually die of boredom. There are so many. You will not be enlightened to see more examples of him getting called up and sent down and called up and sent down.
- Up in Hershey, Leason scored an OTGWG that brought the team to the playoffs for the 69th time, and I think we all know what part of that tidbit led Chris to write a story about it.
- Ian wrestles with why Leason got sweaters over McMichael or Jonsson-Fjallby.
Your Turn
Brett Leason?
Read more: Japers Rink
