This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Drew O'Connor
Vancouver Canucks Left Wing
Undrafted, six-foot-four, and 51 per cent of his shot attempts from inside 20 feet across two clubs.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | PIT | 10 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0.0 | 8:57 |
| 2021-22 | PIT | 22 | 3 | 2 | 5 | -1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 40 | 7.5 | 10:17 |
| 2022-23 | PIT | 46 | 5 | 6 | 11 | -3 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 62 | 8.1 | 9:49 |
| 2023-24 | PIT | 79 | 16 | 17 | 33 | +14 | 20 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 160 | 10.0 | 15:45 |
| 2024-25 | PIT/VAN | 84 | 10 | 15 | 25 | -16 | 34 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 117 | 8.6 | 14:28 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 241 | 34 | 41 | 75 | -8 | 72 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 387 | 8.8 | 13:23 |
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
10 goals and 15 assists in 84 games across Pittsburgh and Vancouver — 25 points at 14:28 a night, minus-16, with a shorthanded goal and 34 penalty minutes on 117 shots.
49.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 60th percentile. His ice went 29-50 against an expectation of 40.91-41.24 — nine goals of scoring missing and four conceded above expectation.
The Finesse Game
117 attempts at a median of 19 feet with 51 per cent from inside 20 and only 11 per cent from beyond 40 — one of the least perimeter profiles on the roster — and 10 goals at an 8.5 per cent conversion. He gets to the paint and does not finish especially well from it.
15 assists in 84 games. There is no creation and the club has never asked for any.
The Physical Game
6-4 and 209 and he is among the faster large forwards in the league. He forechecks hard, he closes on a defenceman quickly, and he wins pucks below the goal line.
34 penalty minutes in 84 games is a moderate rate. He is honest rather than nasty and he kills penalties.
The Intangibles
Undrafted out of Dartmouth, and he reached the NHL at 22 with Pittsburgh — 241 games and 75 points.
He was acquired at the deadline in March with Marcus Pettersson. He is 27 and a third-line winger who forechecks and kills penalties, which on this roster is not a small thing.
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.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
- he lacks itraised, and he does not have it
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.
- durable· was available
84 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“**Undrafted out of Dartmouth**, and he reached the NHL at 22 with Pittsburgh — **241 games and 75 points.**”
“He gets to the paint and does not finish especially well from it.”
“He forechecks hard, he closes on a defenceman quickly, and he wins pucks below the goal line.”
“He forechecks hard, he closes on a defenceman quickly, and he wins pucks below the goal line.”
“He is honest rather than nasty and he kills penalties.”
“He is honest rather than nasty and he kills penalties.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,006 minutes
- Expected goals
- 49.8%
- 51st 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: 29 for, 50 against. Expected: 40.9 and 41.2.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 2 points of one another. 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.
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 — 72 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, 2024-25 · 84 games
- Top speed
- 23.1 mph
- 89th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 2.58 a game
- Distance
- 2.35 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 87.8 mph
- 65th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.2
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 83.9
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
2024-25 with PIT · 663 minutes at five-on-five
- Kevin Hayes19%
- Jesse Puljujarvioff the roster18%
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
- VAN took 49.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.8% — 0.7 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Fourth line, 1,006 minutes at five-on-five — 62nd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marcus Pettersson | 49.8% | 49.8% | 53.1% |
| Erik Karlsson | 43.1% | 52.1% | 50.0% |
| Matt Grzelcyk | 45.9% | 50.8% | 46.8% |
49.8% together, 49.8% for him apart and 53.1% for Pettersson apart. Pettersson was better away from him while his own share held, which is a mark against him more than for him.
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
194 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 9 of them goals. His median goal came from 20 feet. 51% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 11% from beyond forty.