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

Frank Vatrano

Undrafted, thirty years old, and thirty-seven goals — eighteen per cent of everything this club scored.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2015-16	BOS	39	8	3	11	-3	14	0	0	1	99	8.1	11:53
2016-17	BOS	44	10	8	18	-3	14	4	0	1	116	8.6	13:29
2017-18	BOS/FLA	41	7	3	10	+3	34	0	0	0	72	9.7	10:50
2018-19	FLA	81	24	15	39	-10	38	2	0	1	208	11.5	14:40
2019-20	FLA	69	16	18	34	-8	30	2	2	4	162	9.9	15:01
2020-21	FLA	56	18	8	26	+8	26	2	0	7	158	11.4	14:31
2021-22	FLA/NYR	71	18	14	32	+4	22	1	0	3	161	11.2	13:10
2022-23	ANA	81	22	19	41	-29	66	5	0	1	231	9.5	16:41
2023-24	ANA	82	37	23	60	-20	85	13	3	7	272	13.6	18:21
2024-25 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	564	160	111	271	-58	329	29	5	25	1479	10.8	14:46

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

37 goals and 23 assists in 82 games — 60 points at 18:21 a night, minus-20, with 13 power-play goals, 3 shorthanded goals and 7 game-winners on 272 shots, converting at 13.6 per cent, and 85 penalty minutes.

It is a career high by thirteen goals, at 30. His previous best was 24, six years ago.

43.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 16th percentile. His ice went 47-68 against an expectation of 40.67-52.12 — seven goals of scoring missing and eight fewer conceded than the chances predicted.

The Finesse Game

272 attempts at a median of 35 feet, with 27 per cent from inside 20 and 32 per cent from beyond 40, converting at 13.6 per cent.

The release is the skill. It is quick and it comes off the wrong foot as often as the right one, and he does not need the puck to settle before it is gone. He finds open ice inside the offensive zone rather than carrying into it, which is why the 13 power-play goals came on a unit that was 31st in the league — he is the one man on it who can score before the box closes.

23 assists on 60 points. He is a shooter and the passing is what happens when the shot is not there.

The Physical Game

5-11 and 203 and heavier than the height suggests. He forechecks hard and he finishes checks, and 85 penalty minutes in 82 games is a real rate for a first-line winger.

He is not an agitator and he does not go looking for the second penalty; the fouling is the consequence of playing on the puck rather than of playing at anybody.

The Intangibles

Undrafted, out of the USHL and Massachusetts, signed by Boston in 2015, and 564 games and 160 goals across five clubs.

He is 30 and he scored thirty-seven goals on a club that scored 204. An undrafted winger having the best season of his career at thirty on the thirtieth-place team is a peculiar and genuinely valuable thing — and it is also the single most saleable asset on this roster.

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.

perimeter· shoots from the outside, by choice or because he cannot get in
32.8% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 95th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
durable· was available
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
undrafteda strength· arrived without a pick attached
“**Undrafted**, out of the USHL and Massachusetts, signed by Boston in 2015, and **564 games and 160 goals** across five clubs.”
forechecks-aggressivelya strength· first man in, and on the puck
“**He forechecks hard and he finishes checks**, and 85 penalty minutes in 82 games is a real rate for a first-line winger.”
punishinga strength· finishes checks; hurts people legally
“**He forechecks hard and he finishes checks**, and 85 penalty minutes in 82 games is a real rate for a first-line winger.”
agitatorhe lacks it· gets under the skin; draws the retaliation
“He is not an agitator and he does not go looking for the second penalty; the fouling is the consequence of playing on the puck rather than of playing at anybody.”
playmakerhe lacks it· passes up the shot a scorer takes
“23 assists on 60 points. **He is a shooter and the passing is what happens when the shot is not there.**”
penalty-killera strength· trusted a man short
“with **13 power-play goals, 3 shorthanded goals and 7 game-winners** on 272 shots, converting at **13.6 per cent**, and 85 penalty minutes.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,080 minutes

Expected goals: 43.8%; 14th pct
Shot attempts: 44.1%; 13th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 47 for, 68 against. Expected: 40.7 and 52.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

62nd

Numbers

14th

The report ranks him 48 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 652 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, 2023-24 · 82 games

Top speed: 23.5 mph; 96th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 1.84 a game
Distance: 2.69 miles a game
Hardest shot: 97.3 mph; 96th pct

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

2023-24 · 1080 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: ANA took 45.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 43.8% — 2.1 below the club he did it on.
The role: First line, 1,080 minutes at five-on-five — 69th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Ryan Strome	43.9%	43.8%	44.3%
Mason McTavish	43.9%	43.7%	48.3%
Cam Fowler	46.8%	41.7%	43.5%

43.9% together, 43.8% for him apart and 44.3% for Strome 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

332 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 37 of them goals. His median goal came from 21 feet. 27% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 32% from beyond forty.