Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

71

Jake Evans

Montreal Canadiens Center

36 points and 3 shorthanded goals from a checking centre, and 10 penalty minutes across 82 games.

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
2024-25MTL82132336+1100358016.315:33
2025-26 so far
Career3504088128-71131564099.814:49

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

13 goals and 23 assists in 82 games for 36 points, plus-1, on 15:33 a night with 3 shorthanded goals and 5 game-winners.

48.1 per cent at five-on-five, the 32nd percentile, in the hardest defensive minutes on the club. 16.3 per cent shooting on 80 attempts is a career-high rate on a low volume.

10 penalty minutes across 82 games.

The Finesse Game

Modest and well-directed. 80 shots in 82 games is a very low volume and 13 goals from it is a high conversion that will not repeat.

23 assists is the useful half. He reads a breakout as well as any forward on the roster and the 3 shorthanded goals come from that rather than from speed.

The Physical Game

6 feet and 190, and honest. He wins pucks below the goal line, blocks shots, and takes defensive-zone draws against the other club’s best line.

10 penalty minutes in 82 games on a club that led the league in shorthanded minutes is the most useful line in his record.

The Intangibles

A seventh-round pick, eight seasons in one organisation, and a career built entirely on being trusted.

At 29 the projection is 25 points and the same defensive reliability. The 13 goals were a bonus and the club should not plan on them.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 948 minutes

Expected goals
48.1%
33rd pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
48.6%
39th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 46 for, 48 against. Expected: 38.7 and 41.8.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
64th
Numbers
33rd

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 357 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 75 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 · 948 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
MTL took 48.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 48.1% — 0.5 below the club he did it on.
The role
Third line, 948 minutes at five-on-five — 53rd percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Joel Armia45.4%51.5%43.7%
Emil Heineman48.5%47.8%46.5%
Lane Hutson46.7%48.7%53.3%

45.4% together, 51.5% for him apart and 43.7% for Armia apart. He was better away from Armia, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Armia.

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

126 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 13 of them goals. His median goal came from 26 feet. 40% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 13% from beyond forty.