Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

11

Brock Nelson

New York Islanders Center

Two hundred and seventy-five goals in 840 games, thirty-four of them at 32, at 6-4.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2013-14NYI72141226-101230113210.614:16
2014-15NYI82202242+624100319010.515:53
2015-16NYI81261440-33030316515.815:48
2016-17NYI81202545-63610417311.615:39
2017-18NYI82191635-44340313813.814:44
2018-19NYI82252853+202821318113.817:58
2019-20NYI68262854+63240517514.918:52
2020-21NYI56181533-51470412114.917:50
2021-22NYI72372259-533110517121.617:41
2022-23NYI82363975+132460822216.218:26
2023-24NYI82343569-52891225013.618:05
2024-25 so far
Career840275256531+730460241191814.316:48

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

All 82 games, 34 goals and 35 assists for 69 points, 9 on the power play, 1 shorthanded, 28 penalty minutes, 18:05 a night and minus-5. He took 49.5 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,159 minutes, the 49th percentile, and his ice went 55-49 against an expectation of 49.58-50.67.

Five goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and two fewer conceded than they called for. Thirty-four goals is the best total on the club and it came from an even chance share.

The Finesse Game

330 attempts at a median of 23 feet with 41 per cent from inside 20 and 10 per cent from beyond 40, 250 of them on goal, converted at 13.6 per cent against a career 14.34.

256 career assists in 840 games. He is 6-4 and scores from inside the dots almost entirely, which at that size is exactly right. Thirty or more goals in three of the last four seasons.

The Physical Game

He is 6-4 and 205 and uses the size to hold position rather than to hit anybody.

304 career penalty minutes in 840 games is a low rate. He takes the defensive-zone draw and is hard to move from in front of a net, and he does not forecheck by force.

The Intangibles

Thirtieth overall in 2010 out of Warroad, Minnesota, eleven seasons, 840 games and 531 points, all of it for one organisation.

He is 33 and has just scored thirty-four. A 6-4 centre who scores from the paint tends to age well, and this club has almost nothing behind him.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,159 minutes

Expected goals
49.5%
49th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
48.7%
43rd pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 55 for, 49 against. Expected: 49.6 and 50.7.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
80th
Numbers
49th

The report ranks him 31 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 415 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

2023-24 · 1159 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
NYI took 49.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.5% — 0.4 above the club he did it on.
The role
Second line, 1,159 minutes at five-on-five — 79th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Kyle Palmieri50.3%46.6%54.0%
Pierre Engvall52.7%45.1%54.2%
Noah Dobson53.3%47.0%48.1%

50.3% together, 46.6% for him apart and 54.0% for Palmieri apart. He was the one being carried: the share went with Palmieri and did not follow 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

330 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 34 of them goals. His median goal came from 20 feet. 41% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 10% from beyond forty.