Photo by Sandro Halank, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
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Isaac Howard
Edmonton Oilers Left Wing #53
A Hobey Baker winner in his first professional season, small and skilled, with everything still ahead of him.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 | EDM | 29 | 2 | 3 | 5 | -6 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 36 | 5.6 | 10:19 |
| 2026-27 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 29 | 2 | 3 | 5 | -6 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 36 | 5.6 | 10:19 |
This Season So Far
The 2026-27 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
2 goals and 5 points in 29 games as a rookie, on 10 minutes a night — fourth-line minutes and almost no power play, which is the normal first chapter for a 21-year-old winger.
The Finesse Game
The skill is real and it is why Edmonton wanted him. He has quick hands in tight, a fast release, and the ability to change speeds in a small area that lets a smaller forward create room for himself. At Michigan State he was the best player in college hockey, and that does not happen by accident.
What has not translated yet is production against men, which is unsurprising given the ice time. The chances he generated last season were mostly off the rush; the below-the-dots, cycle-and-net-front part of a professional game is the piece still to be built.
The Physical Game
5-10 and 180, and he will be tested every night until he adds strength. He is not shy — he goes to the middle of the ice and takes hits to make plays — but he loses puck battles he would have won in college, which is the standard adjustment for a player his size.
The Intangibles
He was the 31st pick in 2022 and came to Edmonton from Tampa, and he arrives on a team where a young skilled winger can be given time because the top of the lineup is already there.
The read is patience. The tools are top-9 tools, the college résumé is as good as it gets, and none of that tells you whether he ends up a scorer or a tweener. This year and next will.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 288 minutes
- Expected goals
- 43.3%
- 8th pct
- Shot attempts
- 44.3%
- 9th 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: 8 for, 14 against. Expected: 10.0 and 13.1.
The eye and the numbers
SightedThe report ranks him 65 points above where the numbers do. It was written with these numbers on screen and departs from them anyway, which makes the gap a judgment rather than an oversight. 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 656 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 76 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, 2025-26 · 29 games
- Top speed
- 23.0 mph
- 85th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.66 a game
- Distance
- 1.70 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 82.9 mph
- 36th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.2
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 83.6
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.
Recent form
Last 20 appearances, 2025-26, oldest first
2
points in his last 10 games — 0 goals, 2 assists, 17 shots
Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.
Usual linemates
2025-26 · 288 minutes at five-on-five
- Matt Savoie46%
- Adam Henriqueoff the roster26%
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, 2025-26
- The club
- EDM took 51.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 43.3% — 8.3 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Fourth line, 288 minutes at five-on-five — 5th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matt Savoie | 44.4% | 42.1% | 51.2% |
| Darnell Nurse | 42.8% | 43.7% | 49.7% |
| Jack Roslovic | 51.9% | 36.9% | 50.8% |
44.4% together, 42.1% for him apart and 51.2% for Savoie apart. Savoie 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
56 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 25 feet. 29% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 32% from beyond forty.