2024 Report Card: Thomas Harley learns the riddle of steel

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Original Thomas Harley artwork by Ryan Konzelman.

Slow season is upon us; just not here. I’ll have a report card for every Dallas player going through August. As always, consider upgrading to paid subscriber since some of these will be behind a paywall.

One sentence summary

Dallas’ youngest defensemen was also one of its best.

A few good stats

• Cap: Unsigned (Projected: Per Evolving-Hockey, the four most likely scenarios are: $3.9 million for two years, $4.8 million for three, $6.3 million for six, and $7.3 million for eight — and yes, I know how much cap Dallas currently has)

• GP: 79

• Goals: 15

• Assists: 32

• Points: 47

• Postseason: 19 GP — 4 Assists — 4 Points

• xSPAR: 6.9 extra points in the standings (Rank: 2nd on the team)

Don’t know what you’re looking at and need a filthy casual explainer? Click here to learn more about Evolving-Hockey’s Goals Above Replacement (GAR).

We’ll talk about Harley’s tracking data below, but while I normally don’t like using these to evaluate defenders, Harley is a puck mover/puck rusher by trade, so how he impacts offense is kind of a big deal; and so we want to know how that part of his game compares to the rest of the league. What’s doubly impressive about this data is that it essentially says: Harley deserved even more goals (xGAR) than the ones he scored (GAR; already an obscenely high amount). It’s also worth pointing out his shorthanded defense. Though his minutes were limited (bottom graph, far right), he profiled like a defender that deserved big minutes.

So yea, it was a fantastic year for Harley. As a matter of reference (and maybe some not-so-transparent paid post promotion), I’ll be referring a lot to our film room analysis of Harley last summer, when we weren’t quite sure if “elite” meant elite. (Hence the title)