Armchair Hockey Scout

Ask the book

2026-27 edition Ask a direct question about this edition of the book — who, how many, how common, which group more — and it is answered with a table computed on this page from the edition’s index: the season line, height and age, the on-ice percentiles, the grades and the traits read out of every report. Ask for a view on named players — what a comparison comes down to, what makes a man — and you get the book’s reading of their own pages, and only those. The model turns your question into a query and phrases the result, or reads the pages it is handed; it never originates a figure, and an answer carrying a figure that is on neither the table nor the pages is withheld. It does not forecast, and it says so when a question is outside what the book holds.

Tables are computed on this page from the 2026-27 edition’s index; readings rest on the players’ own pages; the model never counts. Twenty questions an hour.
← 2026-27 edition
44

Axel Sandin-Pellikka

Detroit Red Wings Defense

21 points as a rookie defenceman, and a minus-20 beside them.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2025-26DET6871421-20181016810.316:13
2026-27 so far—————————————
Career—6871421-20181016810.316:13

This Season So Far

The 2026-27 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

7 goals and 14 assists in 68 games — 21 points, minus-20, at 16:13 a night. His first NHL season, at 20.

The Finesse Game

The skating and the puck-moving are the reasons he went 17th overall, and both are visible. He escapes pressure, he joins the rush, and 21 points from a rookie defenceman is a genuinely good return.

The shot is a point shot: 121 unblocked attempts from a median of 51 feet, 2 per cent inside 20, 7 goals. 7 from that distance will not repeat.

The Physical Game

6 foot even and 186 pounds, and it is the whole difficulty. 18 penalty minutes in 68 games. He cannot clear a crease, cannot hold a man out of the slot, and is moved off pucks by wingers.

The Intangibles

The 2 columns disagree sharply. He was on for 50.2 per cent of the shot attempts — 60th percentile, which for a 20-year-old defenceman is impressive — and only 45.1 per cent of the expected goals, 15th percentile.

Read together: the puck moves the right way when he is out there, and the chances he concedes are much more dangerous than the ones he helps create. Which is precisely what a slight, gifted, 20-year-old defenceman produces while he learns where to stand.

4 points in his last 10. Detroit is developing him alongside Edvinsson behind Seider and Chiarot, and the minus-20 is a coaching decision as much as a scouting one.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 954 minutes

Expected goals
45.1%
16th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
50.2%
60th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 33 for, 48 against. Expected: 36.7 and 44.6.

The eye and the numbers

Sighted
Report
23rd
Numbers
16th

The two rank him within 7 points of one another. It was written with these numbers on screen, so the agreement is not corroboration — the arithmetic is on both sides of it.

Both bars are percentiles among the 656 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 67 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.

Tracked

NHL Edge, 2025-26 · 68 games

Top speed
21.5 mph
43rd pct

fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.6

Bursts over 20 mph
0.41 a game

how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes

Distance
2.39 miles a game

skated, all strengths

Hardest shot
98.0 mph
89th pct

one shot; the league's average best is 88.9

A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.

Recent form

Last 20 appearances, 2025-26, oldest first

4

points in his last 10 games — 2 goals, 2 assists, 19 shots

Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.

Usual linemates

2025-26 · 954 minutes at five-on-five

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, 2025-26

The club
DET took 48.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 45.1% — 3.1 below the club he did it on.
The role
Second pair, 954 minutes at five-on-five — 55th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Ben Chiarot43.2%48.3%43.0%
J.T. Compher42.4%46.3%45.1%
Alex DeBrincat48.6%43.9%53.0%

43.2% together, 48.3% for him apart and 43.0% for Chiarot apart. He was better away from Chiarot, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Chiarot.

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

121 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 7 of them goals. His median goal came from 51 feet. 2% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 80% from beyond forty.