Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

50

Brendan Gaunce

Minnesota Wild Center

Twenty-sixth overall in 2012, and 28 points in 177 games across eight seasons.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2015-16VAN20101-92000342.912:46
2016-17VAN57055-233000510.09:29
2017-18VAN37426010101557.313:19
2018-19VAN3123+30001250.07:37
2019-20BOS1011+1200009:10
2021-22CBJ30527+2120004411.48:06
2022-23CBJ5011-1200090.010:28
2023-24CBJ24224-76000248.311:45
2024-25 so far
Career177131528-13671022195.910:43

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

24 games in Columbus, 2 goals and 2 assists for 4 points, 6 penalty minutes, 11:45 a night and minus-7. He took 45.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 270 minutes, the 23rd percentile, and his ice went 6-12 against an expectation of 9.43-11.32, all of it with the Blue Jackets.

Three goals of scoring that did not arrive and one more conceded than the chances called for. Twenty-four games in a season is what the last six years have looked like.

The Finesse Game

24 shots in 24 games at a median of 26 feet, converted at 8.3 per cent against a career 5.94.

Fifteen career assists in 177 games. Thirteen goals in eight seasons is the whole record, and a first-round pick was drafted for a good deal more than that.

The Physical Game

He is 6-2 and 222 and hard to move from in front of a net.

67 career penalty minutes in 177 games is a low rate for a man of that size. He forechecks hard and wins the wall, and he does not go looking for anybody.

The Intangibles

Twenty-sixth overall in 2012 out of Sudbury, eight seasons across three organisations, and 28 points in 177 games.

He is 30 and has never played eighty games in a season. This is organisational depth signed to be recalled, and the club has been short enough of forwards to need it.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 270 minutes

Expected goals
45.4%
24th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
46.8%
26th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 6 for, 12 against. Expected: 9.4 and 11.3.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
17th
Numbers
24th

The two rank him within 7 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 415 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 58 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 CBJ · 270 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
CBJ took 45.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 45.4% — 0.5 below the club he did it on.
The role
270 minutes at five-on-five — 4th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Mathieu Olivier42.7%47.4%45.2%
Erik Gudbranson53.0%41.1%42.5%
Damon Severson51.9%41.8%48.1%

42.7% together, 47.4% for him apart and 45.2% for Olivier apart. He was better away from Olivier, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Olivier.

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

40 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 13 feet. 45% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 25% from beyond forty.