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

Jake Guentzel

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

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2016-17	PIT	40	16	17	33	+7	10	1	0	0	81	19.8	15:53
2017-18	PIT	82	22	26	48	-9	42	7	0	1	171	12.9	16:29
2018-19	PIT	82	40	36	76	+13	26	6	1	4	227	17.6	19:21
2019-20	PIT	39	20	23	43	+11	14	6	0	4	127	15.8	20:38
2020-21	PIT	56	23	34	57	+7	28	6	0	7	141	16.3	20:16
2021-22	PIT	76	40	44	84	+13	44	7	0	7	264	15.2	20:06
2022-23	PIT	78	36	37	73	+2	46	11	0	6	244	14.8	20:07
2023-24	PIT/CAR	67	30	47	77	+25	22	5	0	2	238	12.6	20:01
2024-25	TBL	80	41	39	80	+18	24	17	1	5	217	18.9	20:00
2025-26 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	600	268	303	571	+87	256	66	2	36	1710	15.7	19:15

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.

53.1 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 64th percentile. His ice went 70-39 against an expectation of 56.21-49.59 — 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.

What kind of player

The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.

measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
he lacks itraised, and he does not have it

Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.

slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
66.8% of his attempts in the slot, 94th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
durable· was available
80 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
workhorse· carries the load at even strength
15:00 a game at five-on-five, 96th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
net-fronta strength· lives in the blue paint; the screens and the tips
“he goes to the front of the net, he takes what deflects and what lands, and he converts at 18.9 per cent.”
playmakera strength· passes up the shot a scorer takes
“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.”
wins-the-walla strength· the corners and below the goal line
“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.”
retaliateshe lacks it· answers the cross-check, and takes the second penalty
“He does not retaliate and he does not initiate; the physical involvement is entirely a matter of standing somewhere unpleasant and staying there.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,200 minutes

Expected goals: 53.1%; 79th pct
Shot attempts: 50.6%; 59th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 70 for, 39 against. Expected: 56.2 and 49.6.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

88th

Numbers

79th

The two rank him within 9 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 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.

Tracked

NHL Edge, 2024-25 · 80 games

Top speed: 22.2 mph; 46th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 1.38 a game
Distance: 3.09 miles a game
Hardest shot: 83.5 mph; 36th pct

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.

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 53.1% — 2.3 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

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Brayden Point	52.7%	54.6%	45.6%
Nikita Kucherov	54.0%	51.3%	55.8%
Victor Hedman	56.3%	50.4%	50.2%

52.7% together, 54.6% 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.