Jonathan Lekkerimäki
Vancouver Canucks Right Wing
Twenty-four games at 20, from the best pure shooter in the organisation's system.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | VAN | 24 | 3 | 3 | 6 | -6 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 10.0 | 12:30 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 24 | 3 | 3 | 6 | -6 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 10.0 | 12:30 |
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
3 goals and 3 assists in 24 games — 6 points at 12:30 a night, minus-6, on 2 penalty minutes and 30 shots.
49.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 51st percentile, across 251 minutes. His ice went 6-17 against an expectation of 9.46-9.53, which on that sample is a goaltending number and nothing else.
The Finesse Game
The release is the reason he was a first-round pick and it is genuinely NHL-quality already. It is quick, it is disguised, and it does not need a passing lane to be dangerous.
30 attempts in 24 games at a median of 33 feet with 24 per cent from inside 20. He shot from too far out and too rarely, which at 20 on a club that could not generate chances is not a surprise.
The Physical Game
5-11 and 172 pounds and among the lightest forwards in this chapter. He does not win pucks on the wall, he does not forecheck with force, and he is moved off the puck by grown men.
2 penalty minutes in 24 games. The willingness is not the question and the weight is, and that is a two-year problem rather than a permanent one.
The Intangibles
Fifteenth overall in 2022 and 24 NHL games in, after a full American League season in which he was among the better rookie scorers.
He is 21. On a club that is 30th in the league at creating chances and has nobody under 24 in its top six, he is the most important thing in the organisation after the captain.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 251 minutes
- Expected goals
- 49.8%
- 52nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 51.1%
- 65th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 6 for, 17 against. Expected: 9.5 and 9.5.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 22 points above where the report does. 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 — 69 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 · 251 minutes at five-on-five
- Nils Aman22%
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
- VAN took 49.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.8% — 0.7 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Fourth line, 251 minutes at five-on-five — 4th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quinn Hughes | 45.4% | 53.9% | 54.2% |
| Tyler Myers | 51.8% | 48.6% | 49.1% |
| J.T. Miller | 52.8% | 48.5% | 49.8% |
45.4% together, 53.9% for him apart and 54.2% for Hughes apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.
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
46 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 33 feet. 24% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 28% from beyond forty.