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

Kiefer Sherwood

Undrafted, 19 goals, six game-winners, and the most hits recorded in a single NHL season.

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

2018-19	ANA	50	6	6	12	+1	8	0	0	1	60	10.0	11:22
2019-20	ANA	10	0	1	1	-1	6	0	0	0	17	0.0	13:20
2020-21	COL	16	0	3	3	+2	0	0	0	0	18	0.0	8:48
2021-22	COL	11	1	1	2	+3	0	0	0	1	9	11.1	8:34
2022-23	NSH	32	7	6	13	+4	30	1	0	0	57	12.3	13:36
2023-24	NSH	68	10	17	27	+17	41	0	0	2	110	9.1	12:10
2024-25	VAN	78	19	21	40	-1	35	0	1	6	141	13.5	14:53
2025-26 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	265	43	55	98	+25	120	1	1	10	412	10.4	12:41

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

19 goals and 21 assists in 78 games — 40 points at 14:53 a night, minus-1, with a shorthanded goal, 6 game-winning goals and 35 penalty minutes on 141 shots.

47.5 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 21st percentile. His ice went 45-45 against an expectation of 30.89-34.10 — four goals of scoring missing and eight conceded above expectation, on a third line.

The Finesse Game

141 attempts at a median of 34 feet with 26 per cent from inside 20 and 36 per cent from beyond 40, converting at 13.5 per cent for a career-high 19 goals.

21 assists in 78 games. There is very little creation; he is a straight-line forechecker who puts the puck at the net and last season a great deal more of it went in than usual.

The Physical Game

He recorded more hits last season than any player in the history of the statistic. He finishes every check available to him, he arrives late and heavily, and he does it for fifteen minutes a night without stopping.

35 penalty minutes in 78 games is a low total for a player who hits that much, which says the physicality is clean rather than provocative. He does not go looking for anything after the whistle and he does not need to.

The Intangibles

Undrafted out of Miami University, and he played five seasons between the American League and the fringe of NHL rosters before a job at 28 — 265 games and 98 points.

He is 30 and signed here in the summer of 2024 for close to the minimum. On a club whose best forwards weigh 165, 176 and 180 pounds, he is the reason anybody thinks twice.

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
a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
he lacks itraised, and he does not have it

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.

perimeter· shoots from the outside, by choice or because he cannot get in
35.6% of his attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 98th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 50% keep it
durable· was available
78 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
undrafteda strength· arrived without a pick attached
“**Undrafted out of Miami University**, and he played five seasons between the American League and the fringe of NHL rosters before a job at 28 — **265 games and 98 points.**”
punishinga strength· finishes checks; hurts people legally
“**He recorded more hits last season than any player in the history of the statistic.** He finishes every check available to him, he arrives late and heavily, and he does it for fifteen minutes a night without stopping.”
forechecks-aggressivelya strength· first man in, and on the puck
“He finishes every check available to him, he arrives late and heavily, and he does it for fifteen minutes a night without stopping.”
takes-libertieshe lacks it· crosses the line and knows where it is
“**35 penalty minutes in 78 games is a low total for a player who hits that much**, which says the physicality is clean rather than provocative.”
agitatorhe lacks it· gets under the skin; draws the retaliation
“He does not go looking for anything after the whistle and he does not need to.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 923 minutes

Expected goals: 47.5%; 31st pct
Shot attempts: 50%; 52nd pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 45 for, 45 against. Expected: 30.9 and 34.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

76th

Numbers

31st

The report ranks him 45 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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 77 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, 2024-25 · 78 games

Top speed: 22.4 mph; 54th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 1.46 a game
Distance: 2.35 miles a game
Hardest shot: 95.9 mph; 97th 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

2024-25 · 923 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: VAN took 49.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.5% — 1.6 below the club he did it on.
The role: Third line, 923 minutes at five-on-five — 49th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Teddy Blueger	44.4%	50.3%	46.0%
Tyler Myers	50.9%	45.8%	49.9%
Quinn Hughes	56.6%	44.1%	53.7%

44.4% together, 50.3% for him apart and 46.0% for Blueger apart. He was better away from Blueger, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Blueger.

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

208 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 19 of them goals. His median goal came from 28 feet. 26% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 36% from beyond forty.