Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2025-26 report →

20

Brandon Saad

St. Louis Blues Left Wing

Twenty-six goals at 18.06 per cent, and 47 career game-winners.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2011-12CHI20000000030.014:01
2012-13CHI46101727+17120129810.216:28
2013-14CHI78192847+202030215911.916:17
2014-15CHI82232952+71220620311.317:15
2015-16CBJ78312253+11460723313.317:13
2016-17CBJ82242953+23810421011.417:02
2017-18CHI82181735-10141082377.617:30
2018-19CHI80232447-91253319511.817:41
2019-20CHI58211233+21612514015.016:45
2020-21COL4415924+1122016822.114:06
2021-22STL78242549+111081115815.216:16
2022-23STL71191837-81222112715.016:39
2023-24STL82261642-42050714418.115:30
2024-25 so far
Career863253246499+5116236947197512.816:39

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

82 games, 26 goals and 16 assists for 42 points, 5 on the power play, 20 penalty minutes, 15:30 a night and minus-4, with 7 game-winners. He took 44.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,103 minutes, the 27th percentile, and his ice went 47-52 against an expectation of 43.19-53.24.

Four goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and a goal of goaltending above them. He shot 18.1 per cent against a career 12.81, and seven game-winners on a club that won 43 games is a quarter of the important ones.

The Finesse Game

195 attempts at a median of 24 feet with 48 per cent of them from inside twenty, 140 of those on goal, converted at 18.1 per cent against a career 12.81 across 1,975 shots.

253 career goals in 863 games and 47 game-winners among them. Half his attempts come from inside twenty feet because he drives the net at speed and finishes on the second touch; the shooting rate will come down and the shot chart will not.

The Physical Game

He is 6-1 and 207 and took 20 penalty minutes.

162 career penalty minutes in 863 games is a very low total for a winger who plays as directly as he does. He goes through traffic rather than around it without ever initiating anything, which is a rare combination and part of why he has played thirteen seasons.

The Intangibles

Forty-third overall in 2011 by Chicago, thirteen seasons, four organisations, and 499 points in 863 games.

A career plus-51 and nine shorthanded goals. He has scored nineteen or more in nine different seasons for four different clubs, which is about as reliable as a second-line winger gets.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,103 minutes

Expected goals
44.8%
20th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
43.6%
11th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 47 for, 52 against. Expected: 43.2 and 53.2.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
80th
Numbers
20th

The report ranks him 60 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 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 · 1103 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
STL took 44.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 44.8% — level with the club he did it on.
The role
Second line, 1,103 minutes at five-on-five — 73rd percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Brayden Schenn45.9%44.0%42.0%
Colton Parayko43.2%45.7%44.8%
Nick Leddy45.1%44.6%44.4%

45.9% together, 44.0% for him apart and 42.0% for Schenn apart. Schenn was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Schenn than for him.

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

195 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 26 of them goals. His median goal came from 15 feet. 48% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 15% from beyond forty.