This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Beck Malenstyn
Buffalo Sabres Left Wing
Thirty-nine point five per cent of the expected goals — the third percentile, and the worst mark on this roster.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | WSH | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0.0 | 9:16 |
| 2021-22 | WSH | 12 | 1 | 0 | 1 | +2 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 10.0 | 9:03 |
| 2022-23 | WSH | 9 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 14.3 | 9:55 |
| 2023-24 | WSH | 81 | 6 | 15 | 21 | -1 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 98 | 6.1 | 14:15 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 105 | 8 | 16 | 24 | 0 | 36 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 119 | 6.7 | 13:09 |
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
6 goals and 15 assists in 81 games for Washington — 21 points at 14:15 a night, minus-1, with 1 game-winner on 98 shots at 6.12 per cent, and 25 penalty minutes. A career high in every column.
39.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 941 minutes, the 3rd percentile — the worst mark on this roster by a distance. His ice went 34-36 against an expectation of 27.07-41.33, so the goals were far kinder than the chances, and the chances were brutal.
The Finesse Game
98 attempts at a median of 21 feet, with 48 per cent from inside 20 and 23 per cent from beyond 40, converting at 6.12 per cent. Eight goals in 105 career games; he shoots from the right places and does not score from them.
15 assists. He does not create and he is not asked to — the job is to forecheck, retrieve, and get the puck out of his own end.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 209, and he forechecks first and finishes every check. He led most lineups he was in for hits, and he wins pucks on the wall against defencemen.
25 penalty minutes in 81 games and 36 in 105 for his career is a genuinely low rate for a forward who plays this way, and on a club that spent 4:54 a game shorthanded it is worth naming. He does not retaliate.
The Intangibles
A hundred and forty-fifth overall in 2016, and 105 NHL games across four seasons at 26, most of the career in the American league.
He was traded here in the summer. A fifth-round pick who becomes a full-time NHL fourth-line forechecker at 26 has earned it, and the 3rd percentile of chances is the assignment as much as the man — he was on the ice against the other side’s best in Washington and it showed.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 941 minutes
- Expected goals
- 39.6%
- 3rd pct
- Shot attempts
- 40.5%
- 1st 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: 34 for, 36 against. Expected: 27.1 and 41.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 30 points above where the numbers do. 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. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
Both bars are percentiles among the 201 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 60 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 WSH · 941 minutes at five-on-five
- Nic Dowd69%
- Aliaksei Protas14%
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
- WSH took 47.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 39.6% — 7.6 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third line, 941 minutes at five-on-five — 51st percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nic Dowd | 41.1% | 36.4% | 42.9% |
| Nicolas Aube-Kubel | 40.6% | 38.3% | 45.0% |
| John Carlson | 38.1% | 40.6% | 49.9% |
41.1% together, 36.4% for him apart and 42.9% for Dowd apart. He was worse away from Dowd, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Dowd did.
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
133 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 6 of them goals. His median goal came from 12 feet. 49% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 23% from beyond forty.