Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

59

Jake Guentzel

Tampa Bay Lightning Center

41 goals with 59 per cent of his shot attempts from inside 20 feet — the least perimeter shooter in this edition.

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
2024-25TBL80413980+1824171521718.920:00
2025-26 so far
Career600268303571+8725666236171015.719:15

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

41 goals and 39 assists in 80 games — 80 points at 20:00 a night, plus-18, with 17 power-play goals, a shorthanded goal and 5 game-winners on 217 shots.

51.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 64th percentile. His ice went 48-42 against an expectation of 53.21-50.53 — five goals of scoring missing and eight fewer conceded.

The Finesse Game

217 attempts at a median of 16 feet with 59 per cent from inside 20 feet and only 9 per cent from beyond 40. That is the least perimeter shot profile of any forward in this edition, and it is the whole method: he goes to the front of the net, he takes what deflects and what lands, and he converts at 18.9 per cent.

39 assists says the passing is real. He works below the goal line, he is patient with the puck there, and he has spent a career being the man a great playmaker looks for.

The Physical Game

5-11 and 176 and among the lightest forwards on the roster. He goes to the blue paint at that weight and takes what comes with it.

24 penalty minutes in 80 games. He does not retaliate and he does not initiate; the physical involvement is entirely a matter of standing somewhere unpleasant and staying there.

The Intangibles

A third-round pick in 2013 who scored in his first NHL game and had 21 points in 25 playoff games as a rookie on a Stanley Cup winner — 600 games and 571 points.

He is 31, he was traded twice in 2024, and he signed a seven-year contract here in the summer of that year. Forty-one goals in the first season of it.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,200 minutes

Expected goals
51.3%
65th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
50.1%
54th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 48 for, 42 against. Expected: 53.2 and 50.5.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
88th
Numbers
65th

The report ranks him 23 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 637 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

2024-25 · 1200 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
TBL took 50.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.3% — 0.5 above the club he did it on.
The role
Second line, 1,200 minutes at five-on-five — 85th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Brayden Point50.8%52.8%45.6%
Nikita Kucherov51.5%50.8%55.6%
Victor Hedman55.0%48.0%48.7%

50.8% together, 52.8% for him apart and 45.6% for Point apart. Point was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Point 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

298 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 42 of them goals. His median goal came from 11 feet. 59% of his shots came from inside twenty feet.