Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

3

Brayden McNabb

Vegas Golden Knights Defense

Plus-42 in 82 games at 34, second only to one man in the league.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2011-12BUF25178-115100234.317:50
2013-14BUF12000+16000100.017:14
2014-15LAK7122224+1152001742.715:54
2015-16LAK8121214+1192001912.218:49
2016-17LAK49224+154000474.315:04
2017-18VGK7651015+2652001885.720:09
2018-19VGK8141216+1152001844.819:29
2019-20VGK71279+140010732.720:01
2020-21VGK41268+1016000395.119:18
2021-22VGK6931518+1042000853.519:42
2022-23VGK8211617+1751000891.119:51
2023-24VGK8242226+1837000864.719:21
2024-25VGK8251520+4232010975.120:07
2025-26 so far
Career82233146179+1585411248863.718:58

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

5 goals and 15 assists in 82 games — 20 points at 20:07 a night, plus-42, the second-best figure in the league, with a shorthanded goal and 32 penalty minutes.

54.9 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 90th percentile, across 1,395 minutes. His ice went 68-50 against an expectation of 58.10-47.76 — ten goals better than expected for and two worse against.

The Finesse Game

97 attempts in 82 games at a median of 56 feet with 78 per cent from beyond 40 and 3 per cent from inside 20, and 5 goals. 33 goals in 822 career games. He does not shoot.

15 assists. The first pass is short, early and correct, and he does not attempt anything that becomes a rush the other way. The whole puck game is designed to lose nothing.

The Physical Game

6-4 and 215 and among the heaviest hitters in the league. He clears the front of his own net by force, he finishes checks that hurt, and he blocks shots.

32 penalty minutes in 82 games at twenty minutes a night is a genuinely low rate for a defenceman who plays this way, and it is why the club spends less time shorthanded than anybody.

The Intangibles

A third-round pick in 2009 and 822 games and 179 points, eight seasons of it here since the expansion draft, with a Stanley Cup.

He is 34 and played all 82 games. Nobody has played more games for this franchise.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,395 minutes

Expected goals
54.9%
91st pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
51.6%
70th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 68 for, 50 against. Expected: 58.1 and 47.8.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
49th
Numbers
91st

The numbers rank him 42 points above where the report does. 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.

Usual linemates

2024-25 · 1395 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
VGK took 53.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 54.9% — 1.4 above the club he did it on.
The role
Second pair, 1,395 minutes at five-on-five — 95th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Shea Theodore54.1%56.2%52.5%
Jack Eichel57.0%53.8%51.4%
Ivan Barbashev51.5%56.3%52.7%

54.1% together, 56.2% for him apart and 52.5% for Theodore apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.

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

146 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 5 of them goals. His median goal came from 39 feet. 3% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 78% from beyond forty.