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.
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.
- slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
69.2% of his attempts in the slot, 96th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
- durable· was available
80 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
- hard-minutes· is started in his own end, against the other club's best
37% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 7th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
“He hits everything at 6-3 and 195 and forechecks harder than anybody on the club.”
“He hits everything at 6-3 and 195 and forechecks harder than anybody on the club.”
“He wins the wall, goes to the net, and kills penalties with 1 career shorthanded goal.”
“He wins the wall, goes to the net, and kills penalties with 1 career shorthanded goal.”
“He wins the wall, goes to the net, and kills penalties with 1 career shorthanded goal.”
“Undrafted, out of Brainerd, Minnesota, four years at North Dakota, four seasons, and 40 points in 158 games, all of it for one organisation.”
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 numbers rank him 23 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 652 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.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2023-24 · 80 games
- Top speed
- 22.9 mph
- 83rd pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 2.01 a game
- Distance
- 2.20 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 85.5 mph
- 41st pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.1
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.5
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
2023-24 · 915 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, 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.