This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Blake Lizotte
Pittsburgh Penguins Center
Undrafted, 5-9 and 176 pounds, and 11 goals on 51 shots at a 21.6 per cent conversion.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | LAK | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 | 11:12 |
| 2019-20 | LAK | 65 | 6 | 17 | 23 | -4 | 20 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 87 | 6.9 | 13:58 |
| 2020-21 | LAK | 41 | 3 | 7 | 10 | +2 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 42 | 7.1 | 12:42 |
| 2021-22 | LAK | 70 | 10 | 14 | 24 | +15 | 28 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 91 | 11.0 | 12:10 |
| 2022-23 | LAK | 81 | 11 | 23 | 34 | +11 | 70 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 108 | 10.2 | 12:57 |
| 2023-24 | LAK | 62 | 7 | 8 | 15 | +11 | 20 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 76 | 9.2 | 11:49 |
| 2024-25 | PIT | 59 | 11 | 9 | 20 | -4 | 26 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 51 | 21.6 | 12:43 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 379 | 48 | 78 | 126 | +30 | 180 | 3 | 6 | 6 | 456 | 10.5 | 12:44 |
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
11 goals and 9 assists in 59 games — 20 points at 12:43 a night, minus-4, with 26 penalty minutes and a shorthanded goal.
42.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 6th percentile — the worst mark on the roster. His ice went 21-26 against an expectation of 18.11-24.60, which is a fourth line getting badly outplayed and then outscored on top of it.
The Finesse Game
11 goals on 51 shots is a 21.6 per cent conversion, which is the highest of anybody in this chapter and will not happen again — his career high before last season was 8.
The hands are ordinary. He is a north-south player who forechecks and gets to the net, and 9 assists in 59 games is the honest measure of the playmaking.
The Physical Game
5-9 and 176 pounds and he hits everybody. He forechecks first, he finishes checks on men fifty pounds heavier, and he is genuinely irritating to play against.
26 penalty minutes in 59 games. A share of it is the second penalty in a sequence and he does not back out of anything, which at that size is either brave or the only way he stays employed.
The Intangibles
Undrafted out of St. Cloud State, and 379 NHL games later across two organisations.
He is 27. A fourth-line centre with a 42.2 per cent chance share is a problem, and the goals were the reason nobody said so last season.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- hard-minutes· is started in his own end, against the other club's best
24% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 2nd percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
“**Undrafted out of St. Cloud State**, and 379 NHL games later across two organisations.”
“He forechecks first, he finishes checks on men fifty pounds heavier, and he is genuinely irritating to play against.”
“He forechecks first, he finishes checks on men fifty pounds heavier, and he is genuinely irritating to play against.”
“**5-9 and 176 pounds and he hits everybody.**”
“A share of it is the second penalty in a sequence and he does not back out of anything, which at that size is either brave or the only way he stays employed.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 662 minutes
- Expected goals
- 42.4%
- 7th pct
- Shot attempts
- 46.9%
- 24th 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: 21 for, 26 against. Expected: 18.1 and 24.6.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 42 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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 72 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, 2024-25 · 59 games
- Top speed
- 22.5 mph
- 60th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.59 a game
- Distance
- 2.10 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 77.1 mph
- 13th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.2
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 83.9
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.
Usual linemates
2024-25 · 662 minutes at five-on-five
- Noel Acciari67%
- Matt Nietooff the roster28%
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
- PIT took 49.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 42.4% — 6.6 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Fourth line, 662 minutes at five-on-five — 26th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noel Acciari | 39.5% | 48.1% | 43.2% |
| Erik Karlsson | 40.0% | 43.9% | 50.1% |
| Kris Letang | 44.2% | 41.6% | 47.0% |
39.5% together, 48.1% for him apart and 43.2% for Acciari 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
76 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 10 of them goals. His median goal came from 24 feet. 32% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 26% from beyond forty.