Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

55

Colton Parayko

St. Louis Blues Defense

Six-foot-six, 16 goals from the blue line, and 8 penalty minutes in 64 games at 23:45 a night.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2015-16STL7992433+28293031655.519:23
2016-17STL8143135+7324021882.121:12
2017-18STL8262935-7132002122.822:37
2018-19STL80101828+20154031765.722:47
2019-20STL64101828+8163011626.223:00
2020-21STL3221012-214000603.321:20
2021-22STL8062935+16180021354.423:34
2022-23STL7942327-19300011333.023:00
2023-24STL82101626+4230141546.523:52
2024-25STL64162036+12811412512.823:45
2025-26 so far
Career72377218295+671981722015105.122:29

This Season So Far

The 2025-26 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

16 goals and 20 assists in 64 games — 36 points at 23:45 a night, the largest assignment on the club, plus-12, with 4 game-winners, a shorthanded goal and 8 penalty minutes.

50.1 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 54th percentile. His ice went 46-39 against an expectation of 44.20-44.05 — two goals better than expected for and five fewer against, which is a top-pair defenceman doing his job.

The Finesse Game

125 attempts at a median of 48 feet with 62 per cent from beyond 40 — and 19 per cent from inside 20, which is a very high share for a defenceman. He converted at 12.8 per cent for 16 goals, which is more than any defenceman in this chapter.

The shot is genuinely among the heaviest in the league and it is a real weapon rather than a puck thrown at the net. 20 assists is modest and the first pass is simple and quick.

The Physical Game

6-6 and 228 and he defends the rush with reach that almost nobody in the league can match. He closes at the blue line without contact, he clears his own crease, and he blocks shots.

8 penalty minutes in 64 games at nearly twenty-four minutes a night is close to unheard of. He is essentially never beaten badly enough to reach, and it is the single clearest number on his file.

The Intangibles

An 86th-overall pick in 2012 out of Alaska-Fairbanks, and 723 games and 295 points, all of it here, with a Stanley Cup in 2019.

He is 32, signed through 2030, and has played twenty-two minutes or more in every season of his career.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,266 minutes

Expected goals
50.1%
54th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
47.6%
30th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 46 for, 39 against. Expected: 44.2 and 44.0.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
84th
Numbers
54th

The report ranks him 30 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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 79 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

2024-25 · 1266 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, 2024-25

The club
STL took 51.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.1% — 1.0 below the club he did it on.
The role
First pair, 1,266 minutes at five-on-five — 90th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Ryan Suter42.5%54.7%50.9%
Cam Fowler59.0%44.8%48.1%
Pavel Buchnevich51.9%48.8%52.9%

42.5% together, 54.7% for him apart and 50.9% for Suter apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.

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

177 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 16 of them goals. His median goal came from 22 feet. 19% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 62% from beyond forty.