Armchair Hockey Scout Beta
52

Emil Bemstrom

Pittsburgh Penguins Center

Thirteen of his 34 career goals have come on the power play, and 30 penalty minutes in 228 games.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2019-20CBJ56101020-1085049710.312:16
2020-21CBJ20325+201002810.712:51
2021-22CBJ416511-14001629.710:31
2022-23CBJ5571522-116300957.412:07
2023-24CBJ/PIT568816-512401839.611:09
2024-25 so far
Career228344074-253013063659.311:41

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

56 games across Columbus and Pittsburgh, 8 goals and 8 assists for 16 points, 4 on the power play, 12 penalty minutes, 11:09 a night and minus-5, with 1 game-winner. He took 45.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 561 minutes, the 25th percentile, and his ice went 21-24 against an expectation of 19.42-23.02.

Two goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and one below at the other end. Four of his eight goals came on the power play, which is the pattern of his whole career rather than an accident of one season.

The Finesse Game

122 attempts at a median of 30 feet with 30 per cent of them from inside twenty and 30 per cent from beyond forty, 81 of those on goal, converted at 9.6 per cent against a career 9.32 across 365 shots.

Thirteen of his 34 career goals have come on the power play, from 228 games. The shot is the reason he keeps getting chances — a hard, quick release from the top of the circle that a unit can build a look around — and the even-strength game has never caught up to it.

The Physical Game

He is 6-0 and 190 and took 12 penalty minutes.

Thirty career penalty minutes in 228 games is one of the lowest rates on this roster. He is not a physical player at either end and does not pretend otherwise; there is nothing in his game that requires him to win a puck by force.

The Intangibles

One hundred and seventeenth overall in 2017 by Columbus, five seasons, two organisations, and 74 points in 228 games.

A career minus-25. He is 25 and has been a fourth-round pick playing eleven minutes a night for five years, and the power-play shot is the one thing that has kept him in the league.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 561 minutes

Expected goals
45.8%
26th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
48.6%
42nd pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 21 for, 24 against. Expected: 19.4 and 23.0.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
27th
Numbers
26th

The two rank him within 1 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 64 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 CBJ · 362 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, 2023-24

The club
PIT took 51.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 45.8% — 5.3 below the club he did it on.
The role
561 minutes at five-on-five — 22nd percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Kent Johnson46.2%45.5%46.7%
Cole Sillinger47.6%44.9%43.1%
Ivan Provorov41.5%47.2%45.8%

46.2% together, 45.5% for him apart and 46.7% for Johnson 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

122 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 8 of them goals. His median goal came from 25 feet. 30% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 30% from beyond forty.