Armchair Hockey Scout Beta
16

Alex Barré-Boulet

Montreal Canadiens Center

Undrafted out of Montmagny, 68 games in four seasons, and a shot that has always been better than the ice.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2020-21TBL15303002002611.515:15
2021-22SEA/TBL16336040001618.810:60
2022-23TBL10000000010.010:01
2023-24TBL36639-9102004613.011:11
2024-25 so far
Career6812618-9144008913.512:01

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

36 games in Tampa Bay, 6 goals and 3 assists for 9 points, 2 on the power play, 10 penalty minutes, 11:11 a night and minus-9. He took 47.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 372 minutes, the 35th percentile, and his ice went 12-20 against an expectation of 15.92-17.54, all of it with the Lightning.

Four goals of scoring that did not arrive and three more conceded than the chances called for, on a club whose goaltending was the worst in the league. Nine points in thirty-six games at eleven minutes is what a recall produces.

The Finesse Game

46 attempts at a median of 24 feet with 39 per cent from inside 20, converted at 13.0 per cent against a career 13.48.

Six career assists in 68 games. The shot is real and always has been — he has converted at better than thirteen per cent for a career. Six goals in thirty-six games on a fourth line is not a fair test of it.

The Physical Game

He is 5-10 and 178 and stays away from the walls.

14 career penalty minutes in 68 games is almost nothing. He does not forecheck by force, does not win the wall, and is easy to move off a puck.

The Intangibles

Undrafted, out of Montmagny, Quebec, four seasons across two organisations, and 18 points in 68 games.

He is 27 and has spent six years scoring in the American league without holding a job above it. Montreal is not a club that will give a 27-year-old ice ahead of a prospect, and that is the whole problem with the signing.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 372 minutes

Expected goals
47.6%
35th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
49%
46th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 12 for, 20 against. Expected: 15.9 and 17.5.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
42nd
Numbers
35th

The two rank him within 7 points of one another. 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.

Both bars are percentiles among the 415 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.

Usual linemates

2023-24 with TBL · 372 minutes at five-on-five

  • Brayden Point27%
  • Nick Paul26%
  • Anthony Cirelli24%

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
TBL took 50.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.6% — 2.9 below the club he did it on.
The role
372 minutes at five-on-five — 11th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Darren Raddysh39.7%52.5%54.0%
Erik Cernak58.9%42.7%46.3%
Nick Perbix43.6%49.2%51.7%

39.7% together, 52.5% for him apart and 54.0% for Raddysh apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.

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

69 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 6 of them goals. His median goal came from 14 feet. 39% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 10% from beyond forty.