Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

27

Barrett Hayton

Utah Hockey Club Center

The highest chance share on the roster, and 33 games to show it in.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2019-20ARI20134+214001273.711:09
2020-21ARI14213-100001020.011:29
2021-22ARI60101424-8202018212.216:07
2022-23ARI82192443-54240417810.717:30
2023-24ARI333710-1326100664.517:01
2024-25 so far
Career209354984-251027063639.616:01

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

33 games, 3 goals and 7 assists for 10 points, 1 on the power play, 26 penalty minutes, 17:01 a night and minus-13. He took 55.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 418 minutes — the 89th percentile and the highest chance share of anybody on this roster — and his ice went 13-24 against an expectation of 19.86-16.03.

Seven goals of finishing below what the chances were worth and eight more conceded than they called for. Thirteen goals for against 19.86 expected is a shortfall of nearly seven goals in a third of a season.

The Finesse Game

93 attempts at a median of 18 feet with 57 per cent of them from inside twenty and 9 per cent from beyond forty, 66 of those on goal, converted at 4.5 per cent against a career 9.64 across 363 shots.

Thirty-five career goals and 49 assists in 209 games. Fifty-seven per cent of his attempts came from inside twenty feet, which is where a fifth-overall centre is supposed to work; three goals on 66 shots on goal is a rate that has no explanation other than the sample.

The Physical Game

He is 6-1 and 200 and took 26 penalty minutes in 33 games.

102 career penalty minutes in 209 games. He goes to the paint and stays there and takes what comes with it, and 26 minutes in a third of a season is a higher rate than he has posted before.

The Intangibles

Fifth overall in 2018 by Arizona, five seasons, one organisation, and 84 points in 209 games.

A career minus-25 in 209 games. He is 24, he scored 19 goals and 43 points in all 82 games two seasons ago, and last season he played 33.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 418 minutes

Expected goals
55.3%
89th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
54.1%
86th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 13 for, 24 against. Expected: 19.9 and 16.0.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
80th
Numbers
89th

The two rank him within 9 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 76 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 ARI · 418 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, 2023-24

The club
ARI took 48.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 55.3% — 6.4 above the club he did it on.
The role
Second line, 418 minutes at five-on-five — 13th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Nick Schmaltz57.2%48.2%46.2%
Clayton Keller56.2%53.9%47.6%
Sean Durzi56.3%54.7%50.7%

57.2% together, 48.2% for him apart and 46.2% for Schmaltz 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

93 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 3 of them goals. His median goal came from 10 feet. 58% of his shots came from inside twenty feet.