Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

71

Jake Evans

Montreal Canadiens Center

Two hundred and seventh overall in 2014, and 65 assists in 268 games from a checking centre.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2019-20MTL13213+100001414.310:21
2020-21MTL4731013+229010555.511:50
2021-22MTL72131629-52200012410.515:36
2022-23MTL5421719-528100553.614:29
2023-24MTL8272128-124011818.616:01
2024-25 so far
Career268276592-81031213298.214:35

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

All 82 games, 7 goals and 21 assists for 28 points, 1 shorthanded, 24 penalty minutes, 16:01 a night and minus-1. He took 45.1 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,026 minutes, the 22nd percentile, and his ice went 34-41 against an expectation of 37.67-45.92.

Four goals of scoring that did not arrive and five fewer conceded than the chances called for. A minus-1 out of the 22nd percentile of chances on a club that finished 28th is a good season in disguise.

The Finesse Game

120 attempts at a median of 23 feet with 47 per cent from inside 20, converted at 8.6 per cent against a career 8.21.

65 career assists in 268 games. He is a passer on a checking line, which is an unusual and useful combination — twenty-one assists from that assignment is more than it looks. The shot has never been there and never will be.

The Physical Game

He is 6-0 and 190 and defends by taking away the pass rather than the man.

24 penalty minutes in 82 games at sixteen a night is a low rate. He takes the defensive-zone draw, blocks shots, and kills penalties with 2 career shorthanded goals.

The Intangibles

A seventh-round pick in 2014 out of Toronto, four years at Notre Dame, five seasons, and 92 points in 268 games, all of it for one organisation.

He is 28 and has become exactly the player a 207th-overall pick is supposed to fail to become. On a club with the fifth-most shorthanded time in hockey he is the most useful checking forward available.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,026 minutes

Expected goals
45.1%
22nd pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
43.9%
12th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 34 for, 41 against. Expected: 37.7 and 45.9.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
53rd
Numbers
22nd

The report ranks him 31 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 415 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 66 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 · 1026 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
MTL took 46.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 45.1% — 1.0 below the club he did it on.
The role
Second line, 1,026 minutes at five-on-five — 61st percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Josh Anderson46.3%43.6%39.6%
Brendan Gallagher53.1%40.5%48.7%
David Savard38.6%48.6%48.2%

46.3% together, 43.6% for him apart and 39.6% for Anderson apart. Anderson was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Anderson 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

120 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 7 of them goals. His median goal came from 12 feet. 47% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 16% from beyond forty.