This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Brandon Hagel

90 points, a plus-33 and the 95th percentile of chances from a sixth-round pick who came here for two firsts.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2019-20	CHI	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	4	0.0	11:48
2020-21	CHI	52	9	15	24	-7	11	0	0	2	91	9.9	13:59
2021-22	CHI/TBL	77	25	19	44	-18	31	4	1	3	125	20.0	16:21
2022-23	TBL	81	30	34	64	+23	54	7	1	3	178	16.9	18:39
2023-24	TBL	82	26	49	75	+1	79	2	0	3	184	14.1	19:15
2024-25	TBL	82	35	55	90	+33	58	0	3	4	228	15.3	20:45
2025-26 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	375	125	172	297	+32	233	13	5	15	810	15.4	18:06

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

35 goals and 55 assists in 82 games — 90 points, at 20:45 a night, plus-33, with 3 shorthanded goals, 4 game-winners, 58 penalty minutes and 228 shots. No power-play goals at all.

56.5 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 95th percentile. His ice went 60-43 against an expectation of 56.35-43.42 — five fewer conceded than the chances predicted, on the best two-way line in this chapter.

The Finesse Game

228 attempts at a median of 25 feet with 40 per cent from inside 20, converting at 15.4 per cent. He shoots from where goals are scored and he arrives there without the puck.

55 assists and 90 points without a single power-play goal is a rare line and it says everything about how he produces: at even strength, off the forecheck, on a line that is winning the puck back.

The Physical Game

6-2 and 186 and he plays a great deal heavier. He is first in on the forecheck, he finishes every check, and he is genuinely unpleasant to line up against.

58 penalty minutes in 82 games is a high rate for a 90-point winger and a share of it is the second penalty in a sequence. He answers things and he does not back out of anything.

The Intangibles

A sixth-round pick in 2016 — 159th overall — by Buffalo, who never signed him. He reached the NHL at 22 with Chicago, and Tampa Bay traded two first-round picks for him in 2022.

375 games and 297 points. He is 27, he signed an eight-year extension in 2024, and he was on the Canadian team at the Four Nations.

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.

durable· was available
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
56.5% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 48.1% for his club in the minutes he sat: +8.4, 98th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
workhorse· carries the load at even strength
14:56 a game at five-on-five, 95th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
net-fronta strength· lives in the blue paint; the screens and the tips
“He shoots from where goals are scored and he arrives there without the puck.”
forechecks-aggressivelya strength· first man in, and on the puck
“**He is first in on the forecheck, he finishes every check, and he is genuinely unpleasant to line up against.**”
punishinga strength· finishes checks; hurts people legally
“**He is first in on the forecheck, he finishes every check, and he is genuinely unpleasant to line up against.**”
nastya strength· hard to play against; the edge is the point
“**He is first in on the forecheck, he finishes every check, and he is genuinely unpleasant to line up against.**”
retaliatesa strength· answers the cross-check, and takes the second penalty
“He answers things and he does not back out of anything.”
penalty-killera strength· trusted a man short
“35 goals and 55 assists in 82 games — **90 points**, at 20:45 a night, **plus-33**, with **3 shorthanded goals**, 4 game-winners, **58 penalty minutes** and 228 shots.”
playmakera strength· passes up the shot a scorer takes
“55 assists and 90 points without a single power-play goal is a rare line and it says everything about how he produces: at even strength, off the forecheck, on a line that is winning the puck back.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,224 minutes

Expected goals: 56.5%; 95th pct
Shot attempts: 53.2%; 84th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 60 for, 43 against. Expected: 56.4 and 43.4.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

99th

Numbers

95th

The two rank him within 4 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 — 86 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 · 82 games

Top speed: 23.2 mph; 93rd pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 2.33 a game
Distance: 3.03 miles a game
Hardest shot: 87.5 mph; 64th pct

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 · 1224 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, 2024-25

The club: TBL took 50.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 56.5% — 5.7 above the club he did it on.
The role: First line, 1,224 minutes at five-on-five — 87th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Anthony Cirelli	58.6%	48.4%	51.9%
Ryan McDonagh	52.8%	60.3%	52.0%
Erik Cernak	50.5%	60.9%	51.4%

58.6% together, 48.4% for him apart and 51.9% for Cirelli 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

316 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 33 of them goals. His median goal came from 17 feet. 40% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 19% from beyond forty.