This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Connor Zary
Calgary Flames Center
Fourteen goals in sixty-three games as a rookie, and a plus-twelve on a club that finished twenty-third.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-24 | CGY | 63 | 14 | 20 | 34 | +12 | 22 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 90 | 15.6 | 15:16 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 63 | 14 | 20 | 34 | +12 | 22 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 90 | 15.6 | 15:16 |
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
14 goals and 20 assists in 63 games — 34 points at 15:16 a night, plus-12, with 1 power-play goal and 3 game-winners on 90 shots, converting at 15.56 per cent, and 22 penalty minutes. His first NHL season, at 22.
Plus-twelve is the best mark of any forward on this roster.
49.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 826 minutes, the 50th percentile. His ice went 33-38 against an expectation of 31.19-31.70 — six goals conceded above expectation, which on a club whose goaltending was 27th is the goaltending.
The Finesse Game
90 attempts at a median of 20 feet, with 49 per cent from inside 20 and 15 per cent from beyond 40, converting at 15.56 per cent.
He shoots from the middle of the ice and he goes to the net, and fourteen goals in sixty-three games as a rookie is a genuine rate. The release is quick in tight.
20 assists. He holds the puck a beat longer than a rookie usually dares and the seam opens because of it — the passing may end up the better half.
The Physical Game
6-0 and 178 and light. He forechecks honestly without punishing anybody and he will lose a battle on the wall to a heavy defenceman; the strength has not arrived.
22 penalty minutes in 63 games is a clean rate. He does not agitate and he does not retaliate.
The Intangibles
Twenty-fourth overall in 2020, out of Kamloops, and an NHL regular at 22 after three seasons in the American league.
Thirty-four points and a plus-twelve in a first season, on a club that finished twenty-third, is the most encouraging line on this roster. On a team that has just traded most of its top end, there is now as much ice available to him as he can take.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 826 minutes
- Expected goals
- 49.6%
- 50th pct
- Shot attempts
- 51.9%
- 72nd 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: 33 for, 38 against. Expected: 31.2 and 31.7.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 29 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 201 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 71 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 · 826 minutes at five-on-five
- Nazem Kadri72%
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
- CGY took 49.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.6% — 0.3 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third line, 826 minutes at five-on-five — 41st percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nazem Kadri | 49.8% | 49.0% | 48.6% |
| Martin Pospisil | 49.7% | 49.4% | 53.6% |
| Rasmus Andersson | 47.9% | 50.5% | 48.6% |
49.8% together, 49.0% for him apart and 48.6% for Kadri 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
119 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 14 of them goals. His median goal came from 11 feet. 49% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 15% from beyond forty.