Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

28

Elias Lindholm

Boston Bruins Center

Five hundred and fifty-seven points, two clubs in one season, and the first-line centre Boston has needed for two years.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2013-14CAR5891221-1444027012.914:32
2014-15CAR81172239-231440417010.016:25
2015-16CAR82112839-23242031766.318:07
2016-17CAR72113445-2162101517.318:11
2017-18CAR81162844-81860415310.517:54
2018-19CGY81275178+302091518214.820:02
2019-20CGY70292554-82280716917.219:43
2020-21CGY56192847+102260413014.619:54
2021-22CGY82424082+6122101923517.919:57
2022-23CGY80224264+614101218611.818:39
2023-24CGY/VAN75152944-14256141738.719:42
2024-25 so far
Career818218339557+1520167544179512.118:30

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

15 goals and 29 assists in 75 games for Calgary and Vancouver — 44 points at 19:42 a night, minus-14, with 6 power-play goals, 1 shorthanded goal and 4 game-winners on 173 shots at 8.67 per cent, and 25 penalty minutes.

It is the worst full season of his career by points-per-game since he was 21, and it happened across a trade deadline and two systems.

49.5 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,021 minutes, the 49th percentile. His ice went 49-34 against an expectation of 38.72-39.42 — ten goals above expectation at one end and five below at the other.

The Finesse Game

173 attempts at a median of 24 feet, with 40 per cent from inside 20 and 27 per cent from beyond 40, converting at 8.67 per cent. The conversion is the outlier: he has a career 12.14 per cent across 1,795 shots and 218 goals.

29 assists and 339 for his career, and the distribution is the more durable half. He plays in the middle of the ice, he arrives at the net rather than circling away from it, and he is trusted a man short.

He had 80 points two seasons before this one.

The Physical Game

6-1 and 200. He forechecks honestly and finishes checks without hurting anybody, and the defending is positional.

25 penalty minutes in 75 games and 201 in 818 for his career is a low rate for a centre taking these minutes. He does not retaliate.

The Intangibles

Fifth overall in 2013 by Carolina, and 818 games and 557 points at 29 across three clubs, with a Selke finish and an 82-point season behind him.

He signed here in the summer. This club has not had a genuine first-line centre since Bergeron retired and it now has one, and the question the numbers raise is whether last season was the trade or the beginning of the decline.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,021 minutes

Expected goals
49.5%
49th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
48.6%
41st pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 49 for, 34 against. Expected: 38.7 and 39.4.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
88th
Numbers
49th

The report ranks him 39 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 41 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 75 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 with CGY · 684 minutes at five-on-five

  • Yegor Sharangovich57%
  • Andrew Mangiapanenow WSH45%
  • Jonathan Huberdeau42%

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
VAN took 52.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.5% — 3.1 below the club he did it on.
The role
1,021 minutes at five-on-five — 61st percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Yegor Sharangovich53.3%47.0%51.7%
Andrew Mangiapane54.7%47.2%52.4%
Jonathan Huberdeau48.9%49.9%52.0%

53.3% together, 47.0% for him apart and 51.7% for Sharangovich apart. He was worse away from Sharangovich, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Sharangovich 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

249 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 14 of them goals. His median goal came from 18 feet. 40% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 27% from beyond forty.