Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

32

Kyle MacLean

New York Islanders Center

The 11th percentile in chance share, a line that outscored expectation by twenty goals, and a minus-15.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2023-24NYI32459+5110002615.410:05
2024-25NYI814711-1514000616.69:58
2025-26 so far
Career11381220-1025000879.29:60

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

81 games, 4 goals and 7 assists for 11 points at 9:58 a night — the lightest workload on the club — on 61 shots at 6.56 per cent. 14 penalty minutes. Minus-15.

The numbers underneath are the strangest set on this roster. A 44.3 per cent chance share is the 11th percentile in the league, and his line’s on-ice goals were 42-29 against an expected 22.04-27.66 — twenty more goals scored than the chances warranted, across 734 minutes. He was outplayed comprehensively, outscored opponents by thirteen at five-on-five, and finished the season at minus-15.

The Finesse Game

37 per cent of his shots came from inside 20 feet at a median of 27, and 6.56 per cent on 61 attempts is a fourth-line return.

There is no offensive game to describe. He forechecks, he goes to the right places without the puck, and the decisions with it come a beat late — which is what a 44.3 per cent share looks like from the ice.

The Physical Game

6-1 and 190 and honest without being punishing. He finishes checks and he is not going to win a battle against a 220-pound winger.

14 penalty minutes in 81 games is a genuinely good rate for a fourth-line centre and it is the most useful thing on this page.

The Intangibles

Undrafted, four seasons in junior and two in the American League, and now two NHL seasons on a fourth line.

Nothing about the underlying numbers says he should keep the job and nothing about the goal totals says he should lose it, which is precisely the situation in which a club keeps playing a man for another year. The twenty-goal overshoot is not going to happen twice.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 734 minutes

Expected goals
44.3%
12th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
45.4%
13th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 42 for, 29 against. Expected: 22.0 and 27.7.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
3rd
Numbers
12th

The two rank him within 9 points of one another. 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.

Both bars are percentiles among the 357 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 58 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 · 734 minutes at five-on-five

  • Pierre Engvalloff the roster30%
  • Matt Martinoff the roster25%

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
NYI took 49.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 44.3% — 5.6 below the club he did it on.
The role
Fourth line, 734 minutes at five-on-five — 31st percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Marc Gatcomb44.5%44.3%
Pierre Engvall43.9%44.6%49.3%
Alexander Romanov43.4%44.8%50.9%

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

86 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 9 feet. 37% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 26% from beyond forty.