This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Cole Sillinger
Columbus Blue Jackets Center
The tenth percentile of chances, seventeen goals underwater, and he is twenty-one.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-22 | CBJ | 79 | 16 | 15 | 31 | -22 | 37 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 148 | 10.8 | 13:42 |
| 2022-23 | CBJ | 64 | 3 | 8 | 11 | -23 | 22 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 93 | 3.2 | 13:19 |
| 2023-24 | CBJ | 77 | 13 | 19 | 32 | -4 | 46 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 157 | 8.3 | 16:07 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 220 | 32 | 42 | 74 | -49 | 105 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 398 | 8.0 | 14:26 |
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
13 goals and 19 assists in 77 games — 32 points at 16:07 a night, minus-4, with 1 power-play goal and 1 game-winner on 157 shots at 8.28 per cent, and 46 penalty minutes.
43.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,017 minutes, the 10th percentile — the worst mark of any regular on this roster. His ice went 41-58 against an expectation of 39.86-52.88 — five goals conceded above expectation on top of the worst chance share on the club.
The Finesse Game
157 attempts at a median of 26 feet, with 35 per cent from inside 20 and 22 per cent from beyond 40, converting at 8.28 per cent against a career 8.04.
The shot is ordinary and the volume is high, which is the shape of a young centre being asked to carry more than he can. Thirty-two goals in 220 career games.
19 assists. He moves the puck simply and he does not create; the passing is competent rather than a strength.
The Physical Game
6-0 and 202 and heavy for the height. He forechecks hard and he finishes checks, and he competes on the wall against men who are bigger.
46 penalty minutes in 77 games and 105 in 220 for his career is a moderate rate, and a share of it is the stick foul that follows losing a step.
The Intangibles
Twelfth overall in 2021, out of Sioux Falls, and 220 NHL games and 74 points at 21 with a career minus-49.
He has played three full NHL seasons and is still twenty-one. Being handed a thousand five-on-five minutes at nineteen and twenty on the worst defensive structure in the East is the least useful development a young centre can be given, and the tenth percentile of chances is very largely that rather than him.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,017 minutes
- Expected goals
- 43%
- 10th pct
- Shot attempts
- 47.5%
- 32nd pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 41 for, 58 against. Expected: 39.9 and 52.9.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 41 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 201 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 64 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 · 1017 minutes at five-on-five
- Alexandre Texiernow STL40%
- Kent Johnson23%
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
- CBJ took 45.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 43.0% — 2.9 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- First line, 1,017 minutes at five-on-five — 60th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alexandre Texier | 43.5% | 42.6% | 43.7% |
| Damon Severson | 41.7% | 43.7% | 50.9% |
| Zach Werenski | 46.3% | 41.4% | 47.7% |
43.5% together, 42.6% for him apart and 43.7% for Texier apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.
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
210 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 13 of them goals. His median goal came from 14 feet. 35% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 22% from beyond forty.