Armchair Hockey Scout Beta
21

Jake Lucchini

Nashville Predators Center

Undrafted out of Trail, 51 career games at 29, and a fourth line in Minnesota.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2022-23OTT11101-20101147.111:40
2023-24MIN40235-323000229.19:36
2024-25 so far
Career51336-523101368.310:03

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

40 games in Minnesota, 2 goals and 3 assists for 5 points, 23 penalty minutes, 9:36 a night and minus-3. He took 43.2 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 360 minutes, the 11th percentile, and his ice went 10-13 against an expectation of 10.33-13.56, all of it with the Wild.

Level at both ends in a very small sample. Five points in forty games at under ten minutes a night is a thirteenth-forward season.

The Finesse Game

22 shots in 40 games, converted at 9.1 per cent against a career 8.33.

Three career assists in 51 games. There is no offence here and there is not meant to be. He puts the puck out of the zone and changes.

The Physical Game

He is 6-0 and 180 and forechecks hard without hurting anybody.

23 penalty minutes in 40 games at under ten a night is a real rate. He blocks shots, takes the defensive-zone draw, and wins more wall battles than the size suggests.

The Intangibles

Undrafted, out of Trail, British Columbia, four years at Michigan Tech, two seasons, and 6 points in 51 games.

He is 29 and has fifty-one games in the National Hockey League. This is depth signed to be recalled and it will be the fourteenth forward’s job or nothing.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 360 minutes

Expected goals
43.2%
12th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
42.2%
5th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 10 for, 13 against. Expected: 10.3 and 13.6.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
21st
Numbers
12th

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 415 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 59 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 MIN · 360 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
MIN took 51.3% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 43.2% — 8.1 below the club he did it on.
The role
360 minutes at five-on-five — 10th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Vinni Lettieri44.1%42.3%45.9%
Zach Bogosian47.0%41.2%53.5%
Brock Faber39.3%45.3%51.4%

44.1% together, 42.3% for him apart and 45.9% for Lettieri apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.

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

35 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 40 feet. 26% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 31% from beyond forty.