Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

9

Chandler Stephenson

Seattle Kraken Center

38 assists in the first year of a seven-year contract, and the second-worst chance share of any forward in this edition.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2015-16WSH9000-3200020.07:51
2016-17WSH40000000030.08:53
2017-18WSH6761218+1380003616.711:52
2018-19WSH645611-1300103613.912:07
2019-20WSH/VGK65111526+24161257315.114:19
2020-21VGK51142135+22292158316.918:06
2021-22VGK79214364+52661312516.819:19
2022-23VGK81164965+122661512013.319:01
2023-24VGK75163551-9254249716.518:29
2024-25SEA78133851-9241217317.819:31
2025-26 so far
Career573102219321+4215620102364815.716:35

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

13 goals and 38 assists in 78 games — 51 points at 19:31 a night, minus-9, with 2 shorthanded goals on only 73 shots.

43.1 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 8th percentile — among the worst marks of any regular forward in this edition. His ice went 45-43 against an expectation of 35.63-47.12: nine goals better than expected for and four fewer against, which is a line that was thoroughly outplayed and came out level anyway.

The Finesse Game

73 shots in 78 games is a remarkably low number for a first-line centre, and he converted 13 of them — a 17.8 per cent rate that is the second-highest on the club and will not repeat.

38 assists is what he is for. He is a distributor who carries the puck through the middle at speed and gives it up before the defence sets, and he is much better with finishers around him than he was last season.

The Physical Game

6-0 and 201 and he plays a light game. He does not forecheck with force and he does not win a puck below the goal line.

24 penalty minutes in 78 games. The value is the skating — he is among the faster centres in the league and he uses it to recover defensively rather than to hit anything.

The Intangibles

A third-round pick in 2012 who won a Stanley Cup in Washington as a fourth-line centre and another in Vegas as a first-line one — 573 games and 321 points.

He is 31 and signed a seven-year contract with Seattle in the summer of 2024. The first year of it was the worst possession season of his career.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,052 minutes

Expected goals
43.1%
8th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
46%
17th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 45 for, 43 against. Expected: 35.6 and 47.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
42nd
Numbers
8th

The report ranks him 34 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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 71 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 · 1052 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
SEA took 47.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 43.1% — 4.1 below the club he did it on.
The role
Third line, 1,052 minutes at five-on-five — 68th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Brandon Montour45.5%41.6%49.3%
Adam Larsson41.3%44.1%47.6%
Andre Burakovsky39.8%44.9%50.3%

45.5% together, 41.6% for him apart and 49.3% for Montour apart. He was the one being carried: the share went with Montour 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

101 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 14 of them goals. His median goal came from 24 feet. 35% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 13% from beyond forty.