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.
← 2026-27 edition
32

Kyle MacLean

New York Islanders Center

Undrafted, 172 games, and 40 penalty minutes from the fourth line.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2023-24NYI32459+5110002615.410:05
2024-25NYI814711-1514000616.69:58
2025-26NYI59257-640000434.710:31
2026-27 so far—————————————
Career—172101727-16650001307.710:11

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

2 goals and 5 assists in 59 games — 7 points, minus-6, at 10:31 a night with 40 penalty minutes.

The Finesse Game

Thin. 77 unblocked attempts, 2 goals, median 23 feet with 47 per cent from inside 20 — good ice and no finish.

27 points in 172 career games. There is no offensive case and the club is not making one.

The Physical Game

6-1, 190, and he plays a hard checking game. 40 penalty minutes in 10 and a half minutes a night is a high rate and the clearest thing on the page.

He forechecks, he blocks shots, and he kills penalties on a unit that finished last in the league.

The Intangibles

49.2 per cent of the expected goals, 48th percentile, against 47.0 per cent of the shot attempts, 26th, across 610 minutes.

That is a fourth line holding its own on a club that could not, and it is better than several forwards ahead of him on this depth chart managed.

He is 27, undrafted, and the son of a former NHL player. 2 points in his last 10. This is a thirteenth-forward job held by being useful, which is the only way anybody holds one.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 610 minutes

Expected goals
49.2%
48th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
47%
27th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 14 for, 19 against. Expected: 21.6 and 22.2.

The eye and the numbers

Sighted
Report
15th
Numbers
48th

The numbers rank him 33 points above where the report does. It was written with these numbers on screen and departs from them anyway, which makes the gap a judgment rather than an oversight. 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 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 · 59 games

Top speed
22.6 mph
67th pct

fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.2

Bursts over 20 mph
1.88 a game

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

Distance
1.65 miles a game

skated, all strengths

Hardest shot
86.1 mph
57th pct

one shot; the league's average best is 83.6

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

2

points in his last 10 games — 0 goals, 2 assists, 10 shots

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

Usual linemates

2025-26 · 610 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
NYI took 48.4% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.2% — 0.8 above the club he did it on.
The role
Fourth line, 610 minutes at five-on-five — 24th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Casey Cizikas53.4%36.0%46.2%
Marc Gatcomb55.3%42.1%45.7%
Scott Mayfield49.1%49.3%46.7%

53.4% together, 36.0% for him apart and 46.2% for Cizikas apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.

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

77 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 2 of them goals. His median goal came from 28 feet. 47% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 19% from beyond forty.