This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2024-25 report →
Craig Smith
Boston Bruins Center
Ten and a half shots per 60 at the 92nd percentile and an 8.6 per cent conversion at the 25th — a volume shooter having his worst finishing year at thirty-two.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011-12 | NSH | 72 | 14 | 22 | 36 | -9 | 30 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 172 | 8.1 | 14:11 |
| 2012-13 | NSH | 44 | 4 | 8 | 12 | -11 | 20 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 83 | 4.8 | 13:51 |
| 2013-14 | NSH | 79 | 24 | 28 | 52 | +16 | 22 | 7 | 0 | 4 | 215 | 11.2 | 16:24 |
| 2014-15 | NSH | 82 | 23 | 21 | 44 | +11 | 44 | 6 | 0 | 4 | 252 | 9.1 | 15:44 |
| 2015-16 | NSH | 82 | 21 | 16 | 37 | +4 | 40 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 199 | 10.5 | 15:11 |
| 2016-17 | NSH | 78 | 12 | 17 | 29 | +7 | 30 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 155 | 7.7 | 13:49 |
| 2017-18 | NSH | 79 | 25 | 26 | 51 | +20 | 24 | 9 | 0 | 2 | 229 | 10.9 | 15:23 |
| 2018-19 | NSH | 76 | 21 | 17 | 38 | +11 | 20 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 205 | 10.2 | 15:08 |
| 2019-20 | NSH | 69 | 18 | 13 | 31 | +18 | 34 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 184 | 9.8 | 13:25 |
| 2020-21 | BOS | 54 | 13 | 19 | 32 | +21 | 18 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 132 | 9.8 | 14:53 |
| 2021-22 | BOS | 74 | 16 | 20 | 36 | +2 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 187 | 8.6 | 14:25 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 789 | 191 | 207 | 398 | +90 | 310 | 46 | 0 | 27 | 2013 | 9.5 | 14:50 |
This Season So Far
The 2022-23 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 74 games — 36 points at 14:25 a night, plus-2, on 187 shots and 28 penalty minutes.
10.51 shots per 60 is the 92nd percentile among the league’s forwards, on 14:25 a night — the 39th percentile of ice time. He shoots more per minute than almost anybody in this book.
56.1 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 950 minutes, the 89th percentile. His ice went 44-37 against an expectation of 40.33-31.51.
And 8.6 per cent conversion is the 25th percentile. He has 191 goals in 789 career games, a career rate above 10 per cent, and this was the poorest finishing season of his thirties.
The Finesse Game
187 attempts at a median of 29 feet — the 85th percentile for distance — with 41 per cent from inside the slot, the 15th percentile. He is a middle-distance shooter, which explains both the volume and the conversion: the shots are available because nobody has to stop him getting them.
2.02 even-strength points per 60 is the 64th percentile. 20 assists in 74 games. There is a real third-line scorer here and the ceiling has been visible for a decade.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 203. 5.34 hits per 60 is the 65th percentile and he arrives on a puck without punishing anybody for it — a hard forechecker rather than a heavy one.
Top speed 22.2 mph at the 36th percentile and 2.8 bursts above 20 mph per 60 at the 17th. He works harder than he skates, and at 32 the gap between those two is widening.
The Intangibles
Ninety-eighth overall in 2009 by Nashville, 789 games, 398 points, and a decade of being the third-best forward on good teams.
He is 33, in the final year of his contract. A middle-six winger who shoots at the 92nd percentile and finishes at the 25th is the most tradeable kind of player at a deadline — somebody will believe the shooting comes back, and on this evidence they might be right.
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.
- ordinaryraised, and called ordinary
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.
“5.34 hits per 60 is the 65th percentile and he arrives on a puck without punishing anybody for it”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 950 minutes
- Expected goals
- 56.1%
- 90th pct
- Shot attempts
- 55%
- 88th 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: 44 for, 37 against. Expected: 40.3 and 31.5.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 47 points above where the report does. 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 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 59 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, 2021-22 · 74 games
- Top speed
- 22.2 mph
- 54th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.66 a game
- Distance
- 2.31 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 93.1 mph
- 82nd pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.0
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.1
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.
Usual linemates
2021-22 · 950 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, 2021-22
- The club
- BOS took 56.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 56.1% — 0.1 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third line, 950 minutes at five-on-five — 56th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Charlie Coyle | 53.0% | 60.7% | 51.1% |
| Charlie McAvoy | 59.0% | 54.5% | 61.8% |
| Trent Frederic | 55.3% | 56.6% | 50.4% |
53.0% together, 60.7% for him apart and 51.1% for Coyle apart. He was better away from Coyle, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Coyle.
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
241 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 16 of them goals. His median goal came from 22 feet. 27% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 22% from beyond forty.