Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

44

Kiefer Sherwood

Vancouver Canucks Left Wing

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

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2018-19ANA506612+180016010.011:22
2019-20ANA10011-16000170.013:20
2020-21COL16033+20000180.08:48
2021-22COL11112+30001911.18:34
2022-23NSH327613+4301005712.313:36
2023-24NSH68101727+17410021109.112:10
2024-25VAN78192140-13501614113.514:53
2025-26 so far
Career265435598+25120111041210.412:41

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.

46.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 21st percentile. His ice went 26-42 against an expectation of 29.76-34.38 — 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.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 923 minutes

Expected goals
46.4%
21st pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
49.6%
48th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 26 for, 42 against. Expected: 29.8 and 34.4.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
76th
Numbers
21st

The report ranks him 55 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.

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 46.4% — 2.7 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

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Teddy Blueger45.1%47.5%46.7%
Tyler Myers51.2%43.9%48.8%
Quinn Hughes52.4%44.2%53.6%

45.1% together, 47.5% for him apart and 46.7% for Blueger 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

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.