Armchair Hockey Scout

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2026-27 edition Ask a direct question about this edition of the book — who, how many, how common, which group more — and it is answered with a table computed on this page from the edition’s index: the season line, height and age, the on-ice percentiles, the grades and the traits read out of every report. Ask for a view on named players — what a comparison comes down to, what makes a man — and you get the book’s reading of their own pages, and only those. The model turns your question into a query and phrases the result, or reads the pages it is handed; it never originates a figure, and an answer carrying a figure that is on neither the table nor the pages is withheld. It does not forecast, and it says so when a question is outside what the book holds.

Tables are computed on this page from the 2026-27 edition’s index; readings rest on the players’ own pages; the model never counts. Twenty questions an hour.

64

Calum Ritchie

New York Islanders Center

13 goals at 20, and 9 points in his last 10.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2024-25COL7101-70000119.112:47
2025-26NYI65131730-14225047916.513:28
2026-27 so far—————————————
Career—72141731-21225049015.613:24

This Season So Far

The 2026-27 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

13 goals and 17 assists in 65 games — 30 points, minus-14, at 13:28 a night with 5 power-play goals. His first real NHL season, at 20.

The Finesse Game

The shot selection is good for his age: 115 unblocked attempts with 49 per cent from inside 20 feet, median 22, and 13 goals.

That is a young centre who already understands where to shoot from, and 13 goals in 13 minutes a night is a real rate.

17 assists says the playmaking that made him a first-round pick is arriving too.

The Physical Game

6-2, 200, and he competes without being heavy. 22 penalty minutes.

He is not yet strong enough to hold the ice his shot chart wants, which is the ordinary condition at 20.

The Intangibles

45.1 per cent of the expected goals, 15th percentile, and 45.4 per cent of the shot attempts, also 14th, across 706 minutes.

Those are poor and they are a 20-year-old playing third-line minutes on a club that finished 28th in expected goals against. The scoring is the signal; the on-ice rate is mostly the roster.

9 points in his last 10, 4 of them goals — the best run of form on the club. He is 21, a 27th overall pick acquired from Colorado, and the most promising forward here.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 706 minutes

Expected goals
45.1%
16th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
45.4%
15th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 17 for, 29 against. Expected: 27.2 and 33.0.

The eye and the numbers

Sighted
Report
49th
Numbers
16th

The report ranks him 33 points above where the numbers do. It was written with these numbers on screen and departs from them anyway, which makes the gap a judgment rather than an oversight. 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 656 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.

Tracked

NHL Edge, 2025-26 · 65 games

Top speed
23.2 mph
90th pct

fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.2

Bursts over 20 mph
1.46 a game

how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes

Distance
2.14 miles a game

skated, all strengths

Hardest shot
80.9 mph
25th pct

one shot; the league's average best is 83.6

A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.

Recent form

Last 20 appearances, 2025-26, oldest first

9

points in his last 10 games — 4 goals, 5 assists, 16 shots

Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.

Usual linemates

2025-26 · 706 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, 2025-26

The club
NYI took 48.4% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 45.1% — 3.3 below the club he did it on.
The role
Third line, 706 minutes at five-on-five — 31st percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Scott Mayfield36.7%50.2%50.5%
Matthew Schaefer48.8%43.2%51.3%
Tony DeAngelo49.2%43.6%48.2%

36.7% together, 50.2% for him apart and 50.5% for Mayfield 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

115 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 13 of them goals. His median goal came from 7 feet. 49% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 20% from beyond forty.