Armchair Hockey Scout

Ask the book

2026-27 edition Ask a direct question about this edition of the book — who, how many, how common, which group more — and it is answered with a table computed on this page from the edition’s index: the season line, height and age, the on-ice percentiles, the grades and the traits read out of every report. Ask for a view on named players — what a comparison comes down to, what makes a man — and you get the book’s reading of their own pages, and only those. The model turns your question into a query and phrases the result, or reads the pages it is handed; it never originates a figure, and an answer carrying a figure that is on neither the table nor the pages is withheld. It does not forecast, and it says so when a question is outside what the book holds.

Tables are computed on this page from the 2026-27 edition’s index; readings rest on the players’ own pages; the model never counts. Twenty questions an hour.

Kevin Bahl

Photo by Jenn G, CC BY-SA 2.0

Kevin Bahl

Calgary Flames Defense #7

22 minutes a night, and the 11th percentile to show for them.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2020-21NJD70220000050.016:55
2021-22NJD17134-610000166.315:45
2022-23NJD42268+435000277.414:01
2023-24NJD8211011+182001631.617:24
2024-25CGY7331720-635100823.721:23
2025-26CGY7641418+247002577.021:57
2026-27 so far—————————————
Career—297115263-52091032504.418:58

This Season So Far

The 2026-27 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

4 goals and 14 assists in 76 games, plus-2, at 21:57 a night — the heaviest workload on the club — with 1,390 5-on-5 minutes.

The Finesse Game

There is not much and there is not meant to be. 83 unblocked attempts from a median of 57 feet with 7 per cent inside 20, and 4 went in. 11 goals in 297 career games.

He moves the puck to the first available option and lets the forwards do the rest. 14 assists from top-pair minutes is a low number and an honest one.

The Physical Game

6-6, 230, and the reason he plays. He defends the front of the net properly, closes gaps with reach rather than speed, and blocks shots. 47 penalty minutes is a big defenceman playing within himself.

The Intangibles

The numbers are severe. 44 and a half per cent of the expected goals — 11th percentile in the league — with the expected goals running 51.3 to 64.1 against him across 1,390 minutes, and the actual goals 52-59.

The context is a poor team and the hardest assignment on it. But he played more than anyone here and the ice tilted whenever he did, and neither the shot attempts nor the chances nor the goals disagree with each other.

He is 26, a second-round pick, and Calgary is giving him a top pairing because the alternatives are worse. That is not the same as him being one.

What kind of player

The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.

  • measuredcomputed here from the season's own data

Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.

  • hard-shot· beats a goaltender from range

    3 of 64 attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 4.7%, 92nd percentile among defencemen

    Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.21) · 16% keep it

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 1,390 minutes

Expected goals
44.5%
13th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
46.7%
24th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 52 for, 59 against. Expected: 51.3 and 64.1.

The eye and the numbers

Sighted
Report
15th
Numbers
13th

The two rank him within 2 points of one another. It was written with these numbers on screen, so the agreement is not corroboration — the arithmetic is on both sides of it.

Both bars are percentiles among the 656 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 65 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.

Tracked

NHL Edge, 2025-26 · 76 games

Top speed
21.7 mph
50th pct

fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.6

Bursts over 20 mph
0.50 a game

how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes

Distance
3.10 miles a game

skated, all strengths

Hardest shot
95.5 mph
82nd pct

one shot; the league's average best is 88.9

A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.

Recent form

Last 20 appearances, 2025-26, oldest first

4

points in his last 10 games — 1 goals, 3 assists, 12 shots

Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.

Usual linemates

2025-26 · 1390 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, 2025-26

The club
CGY took 47.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 44.5% — 2.5 below the club he did it on.
The role
First pair, 1,390 minutes at five-on-five — 92nd percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Rasmus Andersson44.8%44.2%54.2%
Mikael Backlund44.7%44.3%49.4%
Matt Coronato43.7%44.8%46.9%

44.8% together, 44.2% for him apart and 54.2% for Andersson apart. Andersson 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

83 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 58 feet. 7% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 77% from beyond forty.