Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

63

Jake Neighbours

St. Louis Blues Left Wing

Fifty-five per cent of his shot attempts came from inside 20 feet — the highest share in this chapter — and he converted 18 per cent of them.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2021-22STL9112-22001812.59:19
2022-23STL436410-19241015311.312:26
2023-24STL77271138-162180414518.615:42
2024-25STL8222244605660312218.015:54
2025-26 so far
Career211564096-37103150932817.114:50

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

22 goals and 24 assists in 82 games — 46 points at 15:54 a night, with 6 power-play goals, 3 game-winners and 56 penalty minutes.

49.7 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 49th percentile. His ice went 44-29 against an expectation of 39.93-40.33 — four goals better than expected for and eleven fewer conceded, which is the largest defensive surplus of any forward on the club.

The Finesse Game

122 attempts at a median of 18 feet with 55 per cent of them from inside 20 feet — the highest share of anybody in this chapter — converting at 18.0 per cent.

That is a shooting percentage that will come down and a shot location that will not. 24 assists in 82 games is functional; he is a finisher who arrives in the paint and takes what is available there.

The Physical Game

6-0 and 201 and he plays the whole game in the hard areas. He goes to the front of the net and stays there while grown men try to remove him, he forechecks first, and he finishes every check.

56 penalty minutes in 82 games is a high rate for a scorer and a share of it is the extra shove in the crease. He does not back out of anything.

The Intangibles

Twenty-sixth overall in 2020 and 211 games in, with 27 and 22 goals in his two full seasons.

He is 23. On a club whose best forwards are perimeter players, he is the one who is prepared to go where the goals actually are.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,047 minutes

Expected goals
49.7%
50th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
47.2%
26th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 44 for, 29 against. Expected: 39.9 and 40.3.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
76th
Numbers
50th

The report ranks him 26 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 — 77 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 · 1047 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
STL took 51.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.7% — 1.4 below the club he did it on.
The role
Second line, 1,047 minutes at five-on-five — 67th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Pavel Buchnevich52.2%46.9%52.7%
Robert Thomas56.9%42.2%55.3%
Colton Parayko47.3%51.0%51.4%

52.2% together, 46.9% for him apart and 52.7% for Buchnevich apart. He was worse away from Buchnevich, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Buchnevich did.

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

162 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 25 of them goals. His median goal came from 15 feet. 56% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 19% from beyond forty.