Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

17

John Beecher

Boston Bruins Center

Seven goals on thirty-eight shots in a first season, and the fourth percentile of chances.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2023-24BOS527310-6240013818.410:37
2024-25 so far
Career527310-6240013818.410:37

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

7 goals and 3 assists in 52 games — 10 points at 10:37 a night, minus-6, with 1 game-winner on 38 shots, converting at 18.42 per cent, and 24 penalty minutes. His first NHL season, at 22.

40.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 464 minutes, the 4th percentile — the worst mark on the roster. His ice went 27-18 against an expectation of 12.74-18.79 — fourteen goals scored above expectation in 464 minutes, which is not a repeatable arrangement and should be read as the sample it is.

The Finesse Game

38 attempts at a median of 21 feet, with 49 per cent from inside 20 and 11 per cent from beyond 40, converting at 18.42 per cent on a very small number of shots.

The skating is the reason he is in the league and it is genuinely high-end for a 6-3 centre — he is one of the fastest men on this roster in a straight line and he closes on a puck carrier from further away than anyone expects.

Three assists in fifty-two games. He does not create anything and the puck skills are the thing standing between him and a real NHL role.

The Physical Game

6-3 and 220. He forechecks first and he finishes checks, and the combination of that size and that speed arriving on a defenceman is a real weapon on a fourth line.

24 penalty minutes in 52 games. He does not retaliate and he is not an agitator.

The Intangibles

Thirtieth overall in 2019, out of Michigan, and an NHL fourth-line centre at 22 after four college seasons.

A first-round pick who arrives as a fourth-line penalty killer is not a failure and is also not what a first-round pick is for. The feet are NHL-calibre now; the hands have to catch up or this is the whole career.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 464 minutes

Expected goals
40.4%
4th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
37.4%
0th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 27 for, 18 against. Expected: 12.7 and 18.8.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
29th
Numbers
4th

The report ranks him 25 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 41 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 62 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 · 464 minutes at five-on-five

  • Jakub Laukonow MIN49%
  • Oskar Steenoff the roster31%
  • Jesper Boqvistnow FLA18%

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
BOS took 49.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 40.4% — 9.3 below the club he did it on.
The role
Fourth line, 464 minutes at five-on-five — 15th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Jakub Lauko39.9%40.8%49.0%
Brandon Carlo36.2%42.8%46.4%
Oskar Steen39.1%40.9%54.8%

39.9% together, 40.8% for him apart and 49.0% for Lauko apart. Lauko was better away from him while his own share held, which is a mark against him more 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

47 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 7 of them goals. His median goal came from 10 feet. 49% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 11% from beyond forty.