Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

55

Keegan Kolesar

Vegas Golden Knights Right Wing

Fifty-three penalty minutes — the most on the club — and the ice he was on outscored its expectation by eight.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2019-20VGK10000000010.012:06
2020-21VGK4431013-430000466.59:33
2021-22VGK7771724-668110947.412:39
2022-23VGK7481018+6680006312.711:28
2023-24VGK7981018-8490127311.010:52
2024-25VGK82121830+3530038813.613:12
2025-26 so far
Career3573865103-926812536510.411:45

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

12 goals and 18 assists in 82 games — 30 points at 13:12 a night, plus-3, with 3 game-winners and 53 penalty minutes, the most on the club, on 88 shots.

51.9 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 70th percentile. His ice went 49-30 against an expectation of 41.02-38.07 — eight goals better than expected for and eight fewer conceded, which is the best two-way record of any forward on the roster.

The Finesse Game

88 attempts at a median of 25 feet with 38 per cent from inside 20, converting at 13.6 per cent for a career-high 12 goals.

18 assists in 82 games. There is not much creation and there does not need to be; he is a fourth-line winger who goes to the net and forechecks.

The Physical Game

6-2 and 216 and he hits everything. He finishes every check available to him, he wins pucks on the wall, and he fights.

53 penalty minutes in 82 games, and 268 in 357 career games. He crosses the line, he goes into the scrum, and on a club that took fewer penalties than anybody in the league he is more or less the entire supply of that.

The Intangibles

A third-round pick of Columbus in 2015, traded here before he had played a game, and 357 games and 103 points — all of it in one uniform.

He is 28 and has been on this roster for six seasons, which on a club that changes constantly is unusual.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,005 minutes

Expected goals
51.9%
70th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
51.6%
70th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 49 for, 30 against. Expected: 41.0 and 38.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
49th
Numbers
70th

The numbers rank him 21 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 — 72 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 · 1005 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
VGK took 53.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.9% — 1.6 below the club he did it on.
The role
Third line, 1,005 minutes at five-on-five — 61st percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Nicolas Roy52.3%51.3%52.5%
Tanner Pearson46.7%54.9%52.0%
Noah Hanifin56.0%49.6%55.6%

52.3% together, 51.3% for him apart and 52.5% for Roy 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

132 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 12 of them goals. His median goal came from 13 feet. 39% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 23% from beyond forty.