This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Colin Blackwell
Chicago Blackhawks Center
Five-foot-eight, an 85.4 mph shot at the 13th percentile, and two goals in 53 games.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | NSH | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0.0 | 9:44 |
| 2019-20 | NSH | 27 | 3 | 7 | 10 | +7 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 31 | 9.7 | 10:57 |
| 2020-21 | NYR | 47 | 12 | 10 | 22 | +2 | 15 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 64 | 18.8 | 14:00 |
| 2021-22 | SEA/TOR | 58 | 10 | 10 | 20 | 0 | 14 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 77 | 13.0 | 11:56 |
| 2022-23 | CHI | 53 | 2 | 8 | 10 | -16 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 53 | 3.8 | 11:48 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 191 | 27 | 35 | 62 | -8 | 47 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 230 | 11.7 | 12:12 |
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
2 goals and 8 assists in 53 games — 10 points at 11:48 a night, minus-16, with 6 penalty minutes on 53 shots at 3.77 per cent.
40.1 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 547 minutes, the 5th percentile. His ice went 14-30 against an expectation of 15.64-23.32.
37.9 per cent of his even-strength shifts started in the offensive zone, the 5th percentile.
The Finesse Game
53 attempts at a median of 28 feet, 37 per cent from inside twenty and 30 per cent from beyond forty. Two goals on eighteen shots from inside twenty, and nothing at all on the thirty he took from further out.
3.77 per cent against a career rate of 11.74 per cent in 191 games. Fifty-three shots is far too few to call it a collapse, and it is also two goals.
His shot is 85.4 mph at the 13th percentile. At 5-8 he was never going to beat anyone with velocity, and the career has been built on getting to the net instead.
The Physical Game
5-8 and 181, which is small even by the standards of the players this book most enjoys, with six penalty minutes across 53 games.
22.3 mph at the 52nd percentile, 1.4 bursts at the 70th, 1.93 miles a game at the 13th. He is quick in short spaces and does not cover the ice, which is the fourth-line shape again.
The Intangibles
A seventh-round pick at 194th overall in 2011, four years at Harvard, and an NHL debut at 26 after five seasons in the minor leagues.
He is 30 with 191 games and five organisations. A seventh-rounder from Harvard playing 53 games on an NHL roster is already an unlikely story, and the two goals are the reason it is probably ending.
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
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.
- perimeter· shoots from the outside, by choice or because he cannot get in
29.9% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 91st percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
- disciplined· stays out of the box
0.11 penalty minutes a game over 53, 5th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.75) · 35% keep it
- hard-minutes· is started in his own end, against the other club's best
33% 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
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 547 minutes
- Expected goals
- 40.1%
- 5th pct
- Shot attempts
- 43.3%
- 9th 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: 14 for, 30 against. Expected: 15.6 and 23.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 12 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 141 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 55 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
2022-23 · 547 minutes at five-on-five
- Jujhar Khairanow MIN36%
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
- CHI took 42.4% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 40.1% — 2.3 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 547 minutes at five-on-five — 19th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connor Murphy | 40.3% | 40.1% | 42.1% |
| Jack Johnson | 41.4% | 39.4% | 40.3% |
| Reese Johnson | 31.9% | 44.0% | 38.7% |
40.3% together, 40.1% for him apart and 42.1% for Murphy 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
67 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 15 feet. 37% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 30% from beyond forty.