Armchair Hockey Scout

Ask the book

2026-27 edition Ask a direct question about this edition of the book — who, how many, how common, which group more — and it is answered with a table computed on this page from the edition’s index: the season line, height and age, the on-ice percentiles, the grades and the traits read out of every report. Ask for a view on named players — what a comparison comes down to, what makes a man — and you get the book’s reading of their own pages, and only those. The model turns your question into a query and phrases the result, or reads the pages it is handed; it never originates a figure, and an answer carrying a figure that is on neither the table nor the pages is withheld. It does not forecast, and it says so when a question is outside what the book holds.

Tables are computed on this page from the 2026-27 edition’s index; readings rest on the players’ own pages; the model never counts. Twenty questions an hour.

Conor Sheary

Photo by Michael Miller, CC BY-SA 4.0

Conor Sheary

Buffalo Sabres Left Wing #43

5-8, undrafted, 2 Stanley Cups, and 655 games.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2015-16PIT447310-180005113.79:45
2016-17PIT61233053+242220615414.915:56
2017-18PIT79181230+21020414212.713:57
2018-19BUF78142034-18124031479.514:37
2019-20BUF/PIT63101323-5101011029.813:07
2020-21WSH5314822-1141018815.913:43
2021-22WSH71192443-21420512914.715:17
2022-23WSH82152237+9222211549.715:46
2023-24TBL5741115-312000508.011:06
2024-25TBL5000-2400030.011:20
2025-26NYR6271118+114011818.614:06
2026-27 so far—————————————
Career—655131154285+414214322110111.913:57

This Season So Far

The 2026-27 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

7 goals and 11 assists in 62 games, plus-1, at 14:06 a night. His 5-on-5 minutes were played in New York.

The Finesse Game

The quickness is what built the career and it is going. He was a player who arrived in space a half-second before the defence expected him, and at 34 the half-second has closed.

81 shots and 7 goals from a median of 25 feet, with 40 per cent inside 20. The instincts are intact and the finish is not; 131 goals in 655 games is what he was, and this season was well under it.

The Physical Game

5-8 and 180 pounds — the smallest man covered in this edition. 14 penalty minutes in 62 games. There is no physical game and there never was; he has spent 11 seasons avoiding the need for one.

The Intangibles

An undrafted forward from Massachusetts who played on Sidney Crosby’s wing for 2 Stanley Cups, which is not a career anybody projects. The 5-on-5 results were fine and unremarkable — 49.1 per cent of the expected goals, 47th percentile.

He is 34 and on a young roster that has better options at his position. The value now is a room that contains somebody who has won, and a reminder to every undersized forward on this team that it can be done.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 799 minutes

Expected goals
49.1%
47th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
49.7%
54th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 24 for, 24 against. Expected: 30.3 and 31.3.

The eye and the numbers

Sighted
Report
19th
Numbers
47th

The numbers rank him 28 points above where the report does. It was written with these numbers on screen and departs from them anyway, which makes the gap a judgment rather than an oversight. 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 656 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, 2025-26 · 62 games

Top speed
22.5 mph
63rd pct

fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.2

Bursts over 20 mph
0.82 a game

how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes

Distance
2.21 miles a game

skated, all strengths

Hardest shot
80.0 mph
20th pct

one shot; the league's average best is 83.6

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.

Recent form

Last 20 appearances, 2025-26, oldest first

6

points in his last 10 games — 4 goals, 2 assists, 17 shots

Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.

Usual linemates

2025-26 with NYR · 799 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, 2025-26

The club
NYR took 48.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.1% — 1.1 above the club he did it on.
The role
Third line, 799 minutes at five-on-five — 38th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
J.T. Miller53.2%44.5%48.7%
Vladislav Gavrikov52.6%46.6%48.7%
Noah Laba48.1%49.6%44.5%

53.2% together, 44.5% for him apart and 48.7% for Miller 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

129 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 7 of them goals. His median goal came from 14 feet. 40% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 17% from beyond forty.