Armchair Hockey Scout Beta
33

Evgenii Dadonov

New Jersey Devils Left Wing

20 goals at 35 on a 16.3 per cent rate, and a scorer signed for a power play that is already 1st.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2009-10FLA4000-1000040.013:14
2010-11FLA3689170141006013.314:15
2011-12FLA15213-42000219.510:03
2017-18FLA74283765+10860618814.918:42
2018-19FLA82284270-6880419514.418:22
2019-20FLA69252247-710110216715.017:06
2020-21OTT5513720-940038914.615:35
2021-22VGK78202343+41850417711.315:49
2022-23MTL/DAL7372633-8180001106.414:43
2023-24DAL51121123-681036717.913:11
2024-25DAL80202040+11050212316.313:32
2025-26 so far
Career617163198361-2610037024120113.615:44

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

20 goals and 20 assists in 80 games for 40 points, plus-1, on 13:32 a night with Dallas, including 5 on the power play.

123 shots and 20 goals at 16.3 per cent in under fourteen minutes a night. 40 points from that role is a genuinely good return at 35.

The Finesse Game

A finisher with a quick release and good hands in tight, and a career of scoring more than his ice time suggests he should. He gets to the interior and shoots quickly, and the puck skills at moderate speed are still fine.

20 assists is a fair total. There is no rush game and he does not carry the puck into the zone; he arrives at it.

The Physical Game

5-11 and 188, and he does not play a physical game at all. He avoids the wall, does not forecheck, and does not win pucks.

10 penalty minutes over 80 games. He is nowhere near anything, and the durability has been excellent — four consecutive seasons above 75 games.

The Intangibles

A fifth-round pick, six organisations, three seasons in Russia in the middle of the career, and a decade of quietly scoring 20 goals.

At 36 the projection is 15 goals in a bottom-six role. On a club with the best power play in the league, a cheap net-front and second-unit finisher is a sensible thing to add.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 946 minutes

Expected goals
50.3%
56th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
47.8%
31st pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 44 for, 35 against. Expected: 40.0 and 39.5.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
26th
Numbers
56th

The numbers rank him 30 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 357 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 68 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

2024-25 with DAL · 946 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, 2024-25

The club
DAL took 50.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.3% — 0.4 below the club he did it on.
The role
Second line, 946 minutes at five-on-five — 52nd percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Wyatt Johnston48.7%51.5%52.5%
Jamie Benn42.2%55.5%52.3%
Esa Lindell48.4%51.6%49.9%

48.7% together, 51.5% for him apart and 52.5% for Johnston apart. Johnston 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

186 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 20 of them goals. His median goal came from 16 feet. 47% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 14% from beyond forty.