This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Anthony Cirelli
Tampa Bay Lightning Center
The 96th percentile of chances, 27 goals, four shorthanded goals, and the best defensive forward in this chapter.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-18 | TBL | 18 | 5 | 6 | 11 | +11 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 26 | 19.2 | 13:14 |
| 2018-19 | TBL | 82 | 19 | 20 | 39 | +25 | 34 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 123 | 15.4 | 14:51 |
| 2019-20 | TBL | 68 | 16 | 28 | 44 | +28 | 30 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 113 | 14.2 | 18:27 |
| 2020-21 | TBL | 50 | 9 | 13 | 22 | 0 | 10 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 75 | 12.0 | 17:45 |
| 2021-22 | TBL | 76 | 17 | 26 | 43 | +15 | 70 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 146 | 11.6 | 18:19 |
| 2022-23 | TBL | 58 | 11 | 18 | 29 | +13 | 33 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 111 | 9.9 | 16:34 |
| 2023-24 | TBL | 79 | 20 | 25 | 45 | +2 | 38 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 129 | 15.5 | 18:31 |
| 2024-25 | TBL | 80 | 27 | 32 | 59 | +30 | 28 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 160 | 16.9 | 18:41 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 511 | 124 | 168 | 292 | +124 | 249 | 12 | 17 | 21 | 883 | 14.0 | 17:26 |
This Season So Far
The 2025-26 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
27 goals and 32 assists in 80 games — 59 points at 18:41 a night, plus-30, with 4 shorthanded goals and 28 penalty minutes on 160 shots.
57.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five — the 96th percentile and the best figure on the club. His ice went 46-38 against an expectation of 52.51-39.66 — six goals of scoring missing and the goals against almost exactly on the chances, which for a man taking the hardest matchup on a Stanley Cup roster is the point.
The Finesse Game
160 attempts at a median of 20 feet with 48 per cent from inside 20, converting at 16.9 per cent for a career-high 27 goals.
32 assists. The offensive game has been an addition rather than the point — he is a defensive centre who scores, and the reason he scores is that his line spends the shift in the other end.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 193 and quick rather than heavy. He kills plays before they start: he closes on a puck carrier faster than almost any forward in the league, he takes the puck rather than the man, and he blocks shots.
28 penalty minutes in 80 games at nearly nineteen minutes a night against first lines is a low rate. He is very rarely beaten badly enough to need to foul, and he wins the draw that begins the shift.
The Intangibles
A third-round pick in 2015 and 511 games, 292 points, a career plus-124 and two Stanley Cups.
He is 28. He has been a Selke finalist and he has never won it, and on a club that is 8th in the league on the penalty kill he is the first man over the boards.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,125 minutes
- Expected goals
- 57%
- 97th pct
- Shot attempts
- 55.1%
- 92nd pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 46 for, 38 against. Expected: 52.5 and 39.7.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 1 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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 83 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
2024-25 · 1125 minutes at five-on-five
- Nick Paul22%
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, 2024-25
- The club
- TBL took 50.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 57.0% — 6.2 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First line, 1,125 minutes at five-on-five — 79th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brandon Hagel | 58.1% | 49.9% | 49.2% |
| Ryan McDonagh | 53.4% | 61.1% | 50.9% |
| Erik Cernak | 51.0% | 62.1% | 51.5% |
58.1% together, 49.9% for him apart and 49.2% for Hagel apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
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
229 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 27 of them goals. His median goal came from 12 feet. 49% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 14% from beyond forty.