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

Cole Schwindt

8 points in 42 games, and a fourth-line centre who has never taken a penalty.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2021-22	FLA	3	0	0	0	-4	0	0	0	0	3	0.0	14:08
2023-24	CGY	4	0	0	0	-1	2	0	0	0	1	0.0	6:48
2024-25	VGK	42	1	7	8	+3	0	0	0	0	32	3.1	9:15
2025-26 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	49	1	7	8	-2	2	0	0	0	36	2.8	9:21

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

1 goal and 7 assists in 42 games for 8 points, plus-3, on 9:15 a night with Calgary.

32 shots in 42 games and 0 penalty minutes across the whole season, which is the most unusual line in this chapter.

The Finesse Game

Limited. 8 points in 42 games is a fourth-line total and there is nothing in three professional seasons to suggest more.

He makes the simple play, supports the puck, and does not turn it over. On a club whose fourth line has to be able to hold a lead, that is the requirement.

The Physical Game

6-3 and 210, and honest without being punishing. He wins some pucks below the goal line and does not initiate.

0 penalty minutes in 42 games is remarkable and it is the single most useful thing about him for a club that carries two enforcers.

The Intangibles

A third-round pick, part of the Matthew Tkachuk trade, and a fourth-line centre at 24 who came back to the organisation that traded him.

The projection is a thirteenth forward. On a club with this much depth, that is the ceiling and it is a real NHL job.

What kind of player

The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.

measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
ordinaryraised, and called ordinary
he lacks itraised, and he does not have it

Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.

disciplined· stays out of the box
0.00 penalty minutes a game over 42, 0th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.75) · 35% keep it
wins-the-wallpresent and ordinary· the corners and below the goal line
“He wins some pucks below the goal line and does not initiate.”
punishinghe lacks it· finishes checks; hurts people legally
“6-3 and 210, and honest without being punishing.”
nastyhe lacks it· hard to play against; the edge is the point
“0 penalty minutes in 42 games is remarkable and it is the single most useful thing about him for a club that carries two enforcers.”
defensively-responsiblea strength· comes back; can be trusted with a lead
“He makes the simple play, supports the puck, and does not turn it over.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 368 minutes

Expected goals: 52.5%; 74th pct
Shot attempts: 44.7%; 11th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 14 for, 12 against. Expected: 14.3 and 12.9.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

25th

Numbers

74th

The numbers rank him 49 points above where the report does. 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 — 68 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, 2024-25 · 42 games

Top speed: 22.1 mph; 42nd pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.69 a game
Distance: 1.54 miles a game
Hardest shot: 87.0 mph; 59th pct

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.

Usual linemates

2024-25 with VGK · 368 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: VGK took 53.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 52.5% — 1.0 below the club he did it on.
The role: 368 minutes at five-on-five — 9th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Alexander Holtz	47.3%	55.8%	50.7%
Tanner Pearson	44.7%	57.2%	49.4%
Noah Hanifin	55.8%	50.1%	55.6%

47.3% together, 55.8% for him apart and 50.7% for Holtz 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

49 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 0 of them goals. 47% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 12% from beyond forty.