Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

21

Brett Howden

Vegas Golden Knights Center

Forty-five and a half per cent of the chances — the lowest of any Vegas forward over five hundred minutes.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2018-19NYR6661723-1614001748.114:56
2019-20NYR7091019-11281026414.113:09
2020-21NYR42167-211000333.012:34
2021-22VGK4791120+9120023923.110:39
2022-23VGK546713+5550005311.313:04
2023-24VGK7281119-11390207610.513:14
2024-25 so far
Career3513962101-2615912533911.513:05

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

72 games, 8 goals and 11 assists for 19 points, 2 shorthanded, 39 penalty minutes, 13:14 a night and minus-11. He took 45.5 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 856 minutes, the 24th percentile, and his ice went 32-43 against an expectation of 30.61-36.73.

A goal of finishing above what the chances were worth and six more conceded than they called for. Forty-five and a half per cent of the chances is the lowest share of any Vegas forward who played more than five hundred minutes, which is what the defensive-zone assignment costs.

The Finesse Game

104 attempts at a median of 22 feet with 45 per cent of them from inside twenty and 14 per cent from beyond forty, 75 of those on goal, converted at 10.5 per cent against a career 11.50 across 339 shots.

Thirty-nine career goals and 62 assists in 351 games. He gets to the inside — 45 per cent of his attempts came from within twenty feet — and does not create anything on his own; a hundred and one points in 351 games is a fourth-line total from a first-round pick.

The Physical Game

He is 6-2 and 201 and took 39 penalty minutes.

159 career penalty minutes in 351 games. He forechecks hard and finishes checks and kills penalties, which at thirteen minutes a night is the whole of the job description.

The Intangibles

Twenty-seventh overall in 2016 by Tampa Bay, six seasons, and Vegas is his third organisation.

A career minus-26 and 2 shorthanded goals in 351 games. He was a first-round pick by a club he never played a game for, spent three seasons in New York, and has been a fourth-line centre here for three more.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 856 minutes

Expected goals
45.5%
24th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
44.5%
15th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 32 for, 43 against. Expected: 30.6 and 36.7.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
76th
Numbers
24th

The report ranks him 52 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 — 75 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 · 856 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
VGK took 51.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 45.5% — 5.7 below the club he did it on.
The role
856 minutes at five-on-five — 44th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Keegan Kolesar42.5%47.4%51.0%
Brayden McNabb46.0%45.2%53.7%
Nicolas Hague44.7%45.8%51.7%

42.5% together, 47.4% for him apart and 51.0% for Kolesar 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

104 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 8 of them goals. His median goal came from 12 feet. 46% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 13% from beyond forty.