Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

59

Jake Guentzel

Tampa Bay Lightning Center

Thirty goals and 77 points across two clubs, on the best chance share anybody on this roster carried.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2016-17PIT40161733+7101008119.815:53
2017-18PIT82222648-94270117112.916:29
2018-19PIT82403676+132661422717.619:21
2019-20PIT39202343+111460412715.820:38
2020-21PIT56233457+72860714116.320:16
2021-22PIT76404484+134470726415.220:06
2022-23PIT78363773+246110624414.820:07
2023-24PIT/CAR67304777+252250223812.620:01
2024-25 so far
Career520227264491+6923249131149315.219:08

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

67 games across Pittsburgh and Carolina, 30 goals and 47 assists for 77 points, 5 on the power play, 22 penalty minutes, 20:01 a night and plus-25, with 2 game-winners. He took 57.2 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,037 minutes — the 94th percentile and the best chance share of anybody on this roster — and his ice went 59-44 against an expectation of 61.55-46.06.

Three goals of finishing below what the chances were worth and two goals of goaltending above them. The plus-25 is the largest positive figure anybody on this roster produced last season.

The Finesse Game

338 attempts at a median of 19 feet with 52 per cent of them from inside twenty and 11 per cent from beyond forty, 237 of those on goal, converted at 12.6 per cent against a career 15.20 across 1,493 shots.

227 career goals in 520 games. He lives inside twenty feet and has for eight seasons; a career 15.20 per cent from a 5-11 winger who takes half his attempts from the paint is a finisher who has never needed a heavy shot.

The Physical Game

He is 5-11 and 176 and took 22 penalty minutes.

232 career penalty minutes in 520 games. He is small and goes to the front of the net anyway, taking cross-checks there for a decade without answering them, and the willingness rather than the strength is what makes the shot chart possible.

The Intangibles

Seventy-seventh overall in 2013 by Pittsburgh, eight seasons, and Tampa Bay will be his third organisation.

A career plus-69 and 49 power-play goals in 520 games. He scored 30 in 67 games in a season split between two clubs, which is the fourth time he has reached thirty.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,037 minutes

Expected goals
57.2%
95th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
56.8%
94th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 59 for, 44 against. Expected: 61.5 and 46.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
93rd
Numbers
95th

The two rank him within 2 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 80 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 with PIT · 788 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
CAR took 56.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 57.2% — 0.6 above the club he did it on.
The role
1,037 minutes at five-on-five — 63rd percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Sidney Crosby57.2%57.1%49.1%
Kris Letang55.2%58.7%47.1%
Bryan Rust55.4%58.5%51.3%

57.2% together, 57.1% for him apart and 49.1% for Crosby apart. Crosby was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Crosby 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

338 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 31 of them goals. His median goal came from 11 feet. 51% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 11% from beyond forty.