Analytics with Alison: Giordano and 1,000 NHL Games

Five games after crossing the 1,000 NHL game threshold, Kraken captain Mark Giordano will be celebrated tonight as the 364th player and 120th defenseman to reach such a milestone in the NHL.

The total number of games is impressive in and of itself. It becomes more impressive when you consider that Giordano, who was undrafted, is now playing his 16th season in arguably the best hockey league in the world, and it becomes even more of an accomplishment when you look at the level at which Giordano is still contributing on the ice today.
Let's dig in.
Of course, there have been notable accolades for Giordano. He's won a Norris Trophy for best defenseman (2018-19), and a Mark Messier Award for exemplifying leadership on and off the ice (2020).
If we look at traditional counting stats, he's averaged .36 goals per 60 minutes of play throughout his career (a number he's more or less in line with this season with .3 goals / 60); and he's only slightly behind his career average for points per 60 minutes of play (1.37) with 1.77 points / 60 as a member of the Kraken. (All situations per Evolving-Hockey.com)
And he's still shooting the puck as much as he ever did. For the past five seasons, according to Sportlogiq, Giordano has been in the top 10 among all NHL defensemen in total shot attempts, and this year, he's actually shooting a bit more than his career average (5.68 shot attempts per 60) with 6.24 shot attempts per 60 while still falling in line with his career average of individual shot quality (.27 individual expected goals).

So, Giordano hasn't just found a way to stick around, he's producing offensively at levels commensurate with his career averages.
And defensively, if we look at his last three seasons combined using Evolving Hockey's Goals Above Replacement model, we also see Giordano still falls in the top five percent as far as defensive contribution.

All that to say, the man they call "Gio" has found some remarkable sustainability in his performance. The visual below from HockeyViz.com tracks the defender's performance in a few key areas of the game across the entirety of his career.
Each bar is a key metric with the red line tracking a player's performance across percentiles as noted on the right-hand side (middle of the bar is considered average / 50 percentile). For each metric, being "above" average, or above the midline, is an indication of play that is better than league average.

The top bar (finishing) shows that the Toronto native has been above average in scoring individually while playing mostly top pair minutes (against top pair competition) the majority of his career (fourth bar).
Meanwhile, at a team level, Giordano usually helps build an advantage in overall offensive shot quality (second bar), while keeping opponents' offensive quality quieter than league average (fourth bar).
On special teams, when playing with the man-advantage (fifth bar), shot quality with Giordano on the ice is usually in his team's favor, and, other than a rough patch in 2016, the penalty kill keeps opponents' power-play attacks below league average for overall shot quality.
It's a rare treat to get to see a player celebrate 1,000 NHL games. Such an event is perhaps even a little more special when the celebration surrounds a player like Giordano. Enjoy it, Kraken fans, on and off the ice, your captain is definitely a good one.