This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Gage Goncalves
Tampa Bay Lightning Center
Twenty points in a first full season, and the ice he was on conceded five fewer goals than the chances predicted.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-24 | TBL | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 9:58 |
| 2024-25 | TBL | 60 | 8 | 12 | 20 | +7 | 14 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 61 | 13.1 | 12:48 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 62 | 8 | 12 | 20 | +7 | 20 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 61 | 13.1 | 12:43 |
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
8 goals and 12 assists in 60 games — 20 points at 12:48 a night, plus-7, with 14 penalty minutes on 61 shots. They were effectively his first NHL games.
49.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 44th percentile, across 682 minutes. His ice went 38-21 against an expectation of 25.63-26.25 — twelve goals better than expected for and five fewer against, on a fourth line.
The Finesse Game
61 attempts at a median of 27 feet with 39 per cent from inside 20, converting at 13.1 per cent.
12 assists in 60 games at under thirteen minutes a night is a promising rate. He handles the puck well in a small space and he supports it low, and the offensive game is more advanced than a fourth-line assignment suggests.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 189 and honest without being heavy. He forechecks properly and he is not going to move a defenceman off a puck.
14 penalty minutes in 60 games is a low rate. He is disciplined and he is used on the penalty kill, which for a first-year forward on a club with these expectations means something.
The Intangibles
A second-round pick in 2020 who spent four full seasons in the American League — a long apprenticeship even by this organisation’s standards.
62 NHL games and 20 points. He is 24 and a useful bottom-six forward on a club that has very little cheap depth.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 682 minutes
- Expected goals
- 49.4%
- 45th pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.7%
- 49th 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: 38 for, 21 against. Expected: 25.6 and 26.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 4 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.
Usual linemates
2024-25 · 682 minutes at five-on-five
- Nick Paul39%
- Conor Geekie19%
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
- TBL took 50.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.4% — 1.4 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Fourth line, 682 minutes at five-on-five — 27th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nick Paul | 51.9% | 47.8% | 46.7% |
| Victor Hedman | 48.7% | 49.8% | 52.0% |
| Emil Lilleberg | 47.3% | 50.3% | 48.8% |
51.9% together, 47.8% for him apart and 46.7% for Paul apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
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
88 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 9 of them goals. His median goal came from 28 feet. 39% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 27% from beyond forty.