This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Cole Smith
Nashville Predators Right Wing
Undrafted out of Brainerd, a shot median of sixteen feet, and 60 per cent of them from inside twenty.
| 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 | NSH | 80 | 9 | 14 | 23 | +5 | 63 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 112 | 8.0 | 13:41 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 158 | 13 | 27 | 40 | -1 | 123 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 180 | 7.2 | 12:59 |
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
80 games, 9 goals and 14 assists for 23 points, 1 shorthanded, 63 penalty minutes, 13:41 a night and plus-5. He took 50.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 915 minutes, the 57th percentile, and his ice went 32-33 against an expectation of 36.11-35.30.
Four goals of scoring that did not arrive and two fewer conceded than the chances called for. Eighty games from an undrafted fourth-liner at 28 is the whole of what is being asked.
The Finesse Game
112 shots at a median of 16 feet with 60 per cent of them from inside 20 and 8 per cent from beyond 40, converted at 8.0 per cent against a career 7.22.
27 career assists in 158 games. He shoots from as close in as anybody on this roster and he cannot finish from there — nine goals on a hundred and twelve shots is what the hands are. Everything he does is arrive.
The Physical Game
He hits everything at 6-3 and 195 and forechecks harder than anybody on the club.
123 career penalty minutes in 158 games is a real rate. He wins the wall, goes to the net, and kills penalties with 1 career shorthanded goal.
The Intangibles
Undrafted, out of Brainerd, Minnesota, four years at North Dakota, four seasons, and 40 points in 158 games, all of it for one organisation.
He is 28 and plays thirteen and a half minutes a night on an eighth-ranked penalty kill. Undrafted forwards who last four seasons are almost always doing something the box score does not record.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 915 minutes
- Expected goals
- 50.6%
- 58th pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.2%
- 49th 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: 32 for, 33 against. Expected: 36.1 and 35.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 5 points of one another. 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.
Both bars are percentiles among the 415 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 66 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 · 915 minutes at five-on-five
- Kiefer Sherwoodnow VAN33%
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
- NSH took 52.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.6% — 1.9 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second line, 915 minutes at five-on-five — 49th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Michael McCarron | 53.2% | 47.8% | 47.7% |
| Roman Josi | 56.3% | 47.0% | 53.9% |
| Jeremy Lauzon | 48.2% | 51.8% | 50.7% |
53.2% together, 47.8% for him apart and 47.7% for McCarron apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
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
143 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 9 of them goals. His median goal came from 15 feet. 61% of his shots came from inside twenty feet.