This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Cole Smith
Nashville Predators Right Wing
Undrafted, sixty penalty minutes, and 123 attacking-zone draws against 239 defensive ones.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | NSH | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 | 5:57 |
| 2021-22 | NSH | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0.0 | 8:50 |
| 2022-23 | NSH | 69 | 4 | 13 | 17 | -3 | 60 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 64 | 6.3 | 12:45 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 78 | 4 | 13 | 17 | -6 | 60 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 68 | 5.9 | 12:16 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 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
4 goals and 13 assists in 69 games — 17 points — at 12:45 a night, with 60 penalty minutes. Minus-3, 64 shots at 6.3 per cent.
47.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 32nd percentile, with his ice at 18-26 against an expectation of 26.63-29.97 — nine goals short at the offensive end.
And the deployment: he started 34.0 per cent of his shifts in the attacking zone — 123 attacking draws against 239 defensive ones, the hardest forward share on the club. Only Jankowski and McCarron were given less.
Three seasons, 78 games, 17 points, and 69 of the games came last year.
The Finesse Game
64 shots at a median of 18 feet, 54 per cent from inside twenty and 11 per cent from beyond forty.
Beyond forty: 9 shots on goal, 1 goal. Inside forty: 54 shots, 3 goals, 5.56 per cent.
Nine long shots in sixty-nine games is one of the most disciplined charts in the chapter, and 5.56 per cent from inside forty is a poor return on it. Four goals in sixty-nine games is what the finishing is worth.
95.3 mph at the 79th percentile, on six slap shots.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 195, and 60 penalty minutes in 69 games.
Top speed 23.1 mph, the 87th percentile — level with Gurianov as the fastest Nashville forward, on a twelve-minute workload, which makes it a genuinely quick reading rather than an artefact of ice time. Bursts 1.5 a game, the 72nd; 1.93 miles a game, the 13th.
He forechecks at speed, finishes his checks and fights, and at 6-3 from the third-hardest zone starts on the club that is the entire job.
He kills penalties.
The Intangibles
Undrafted, out of North Dakota, signed by Nashville at twenty-four, and a first real NHL season at twenty-seven.
17 points is not a season anyone builds around, and 34.0 per cent zone starts is not a share anyone scores from. The speed and the willingness are real and they are what got an undrafted twenty-seven-year-old sixty-nine games.
This book records the deployment beside the production, because separating them is the only honest way to read a fourth line.
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
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.
- hard-minutes· is started in his own end, against the other club's best
34% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 9th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
“**Undrafted**, out of North Dakota, signed by Nashville at twenty-four, and a first real NHL season at twenty-seven.”
“He forechecks at speed, finishes his checks and fights, and at 6-3 from the third-hardest zone starts on the club that is the entire job.”
“He forechecks at speed, finishes his checks and fights, and at 6-3 from the third-hardest zone starts on the club that is the entire job.”
“He kills penalties.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 729 minutes
- Expected goals
- 47%
- 33rd pct
- Shot attempts
- 46.7%
- 27th 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: 18 for, 26 against. Expected: 26.6 and 30.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 29 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 638 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, 2022-23 · 69 games
- Top speed
- 23.1 mph
- 90th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.48 a game
- Distance
- 1.93 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 95.3 mph
- 93rd pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.0
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.9
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
2022-23 · 729 minutes at five-on-five
- Yakov Trenin29%
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, 2022-23
- The club
- NSH took 47.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.0% — level with the club he did it on.
- The role
- 729 minutes at five-on-five — 33rd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colton Sissons | 44.5% | 50.1% | 44.2% |
| Dante Fabbro | 41.8% | 49.9% | 49.4% |
| Roman Josi | 49.9% | 45.6% | 49.6% |
44.5% together, 50.1% for him apart and 44.2% for Sissons apart. He was better away from Sissons, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Sissons.
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
96 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 10 feet. 54% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 11% from beyond forty.