This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2025-26 report →

Kevin Hayes

The slowest top speed of all 365 forwards the tracking covers, and the 26th-hardest shot.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2014-15	NYR	79	17	28	45	+15	22	1	1	1	111	15.3	13:02
2015-16	NYR	79	14	22	36	+4	30	3	0	3	133	10.5	13:40
2016-17	NYR	76	17	32	49	+10	18	1	1	4	143	11.9	16:34
2017-18	NYR	76	25	19	44	+1	18	6	2	4	172	14.5	17:21
2018-19	NYR/WPG	71	19	36	55	-2	12	3	2	2	156	12.2	18:17
2019-20	PHI	69	23	18	41	-6	34	4	4	5	175	13.1	17:44
2020-21	PHI	55	12	19	31	-2	22	3	0	2	127	9.4	17:31
2021-22	PHI	48	10	21	31	-20	26	2	0	1	126	7.9	17:55
2022-23 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	553	137	195	332	0	182	23	10	22	1143	12.0	16:20

This Season So Far

The 2022-23 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

48 games, 10 goals and 21 assists at 17:55 a night, minus-20, twenty-six penalty minutes, 126 shots. Twenty-fourth overall in 2010 by Chicago, eight seasons, 553 games, 332 points, and forty-eight games is the fewest of any of them.

The Finesse Game

2.27 even-strength points per 60 is the 75th percentile among forwards, which is a genuine second-line rate and the best thing in the file.

8.79 shots per 60 is the 73rd percentile at 7.9 per cent, from a 27-foot median with forty-three per cent from the slot.

2.09 takeaways per 60 is the 79th percentile against 1.39 giveaways at the 42nd — a good ledger from a big centre.

43.5 per cent of the expected goals is the 41st-lowest of the 393 forwards who played forty games and 44.3 per cent of the attempts the 9th percentile, out of 46.6 per cent offensive-zone starts, the 223rd-lowest of the 652 skaters who took two hundred end-zone starts.

The chair is a little below level and the shares are in the bottom tenth of the league. His ice went 30-40 against an expectation of 24.26-31.56 — six goals of surplus going forward and eight more against than the model asked.

And one pairing is worth naming. Across 284 five-on-five attempts with Joel Farabee the two of them took 37.0 per cent of the expected goals. Farabee apart from him was at 47.3, Hayes apart from Farabee 45.4.

The Physical Game

2.51 hits per 60 is the 29th percentile and 0.84 blocks per 60 the 7th at 6-3 and 217 pounds. He is a large man who plays a perimeter physical game, and twenty-six penalty minutes in forty-eight games says the rest.

The Intangibles

20.7 mph is the slowest top speed of all 365 forwards the tracking covers, and 0.6 bursts over twenty miles an hour per 60 is the 4th-fewest of the same 365.

And his shot is 97.0 mph, the 26th-hardest of those 365. The two extremes in this file point in opposite directions and both are real.

9.84 miles per 60 is the 66th percentile, so the ground gets covered — it simply never gets covered quickly.

He is 30 with a 332-point career and two of the last four seasons cut short. The rate at even strength says top-six centre and the skating says the shape of the next contract is already decided.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 658 minutes

Expected goals: 43.5%; 12th pct
Shot attempts: 44.3%; 12th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 30 for, 40 against. Expected: 24.3 and 31.6.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

33rd

Numbers

12th

The report ranks him 21 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 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 57 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, 2021-22 · 48 games

Top speed: 20.7 mph; 8th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.19 a game
Distance: 2.94 miles a game
Hardest shot: 97.0 mph; 96th pct

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.

Usual linemates

2021-22 · 658 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, 2021-22

The club: PHI took 46.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 43.5% — 2.5 below the club he did it on.
The role: Third line, 658 minutes at five-on-five — 28th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Travis Sanheim	44.0%	43.1%	49.2%
Travis Konecny	48.1%	40.6%	49.1%
James van Riemsdyk	45.1%	42.5%	48.7%

44.0% together, 43.1% for him apart and 49.2% for Sanheim apart. Sanheim 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

146 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 11 of them goals. His median goal came from 14 feet. 32% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 26% from beyond forty.