Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

77

Connor McMichael

Washington Capitals Left Wing

Eighteen goals at 23, on a nineteen-foot median attempt.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2020-21WSH10000200010.09:54
2021-22WSH689918-3100001058.610:28
2022-23WSH60000500020.08:52
2023-24WSH80181533-203421313513.315:59
2024-25 so far
Career155272451-235121324311.113:15

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, 18 goals and 15 assists for 33 points, 2 on the power play, 1 shorthanded, 34 penalty minutes, 15:59 a night and minus-20. He took 47.2 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,044 minutes, the 33rd percentile, and his ice went 31-47 against an expectation of 39.46-44.07.

Eight goals of finishing below what the chances were worth and three more conceded than they called for. Eighteen goals and 33 points are both career highs and the minus-20 is the second-worst figure of anybody who played the season in Washington.

The Finesse Game

198 attempts at a median of 19 feet with 54 per cent of them from inside twenty and 14 per cent from beyond forty, 133 of those on goal, converted at 13.3 per cent against a career 11.11 across 243 shots.

Twenty-seven career goals and 24 assists in 155 games. A nineteen-foot median attempt with more than half of them from inside twenty feet is a winger who does his shooting from the slot; 198 attempts in sixteen minutes a night is a great deal of volume for the ice.

The Physical Game

He is 6-0 and 180 and took 34 penalty minutes.

Fifty-one career penalty minutes in 155 games. He is light and gets to the middle of the ice anyway, which means taking the punishment rather than handing it out; there is no forechecking damage in his game.

The Intangibles

Twenty-fifth overall in 2019 by Washington, four seasons, one organisation, and 51 points in 155 games.

A career minus-23 in 155 games. He is 23, he was a first-round pick by this club, and last season was the first in which anybody gave him a full one.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,044 minutes

Expected goals
47.2%
33rd pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
46.9%
27th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 31 for, 47 against. Expected: 39.5 and 44.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
84th
Numbers
33rd

The report ranks him 51 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 77 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 · 1044 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
WSH took 47.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.2% — level with the club he did it on.
The role
Second line, 1,044 minutes at five-on-five — 65th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Aliaksei Protas51.8%43.2%49.7%
John Carlson41.5%50.8%49.7%
Anthony Mantha53.3%43.3%55.4%

51.8% together, 43.2% for him apart and 49.7% for Protas apart. He was worse away from Protas, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Protas did.

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

198 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 18 of them goals. His median goal came from 12 feet. 54% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 14% from beyond forty.