Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

91

Leo Carlsson

Anaheim Ducks Center

Nineteen years old, even on the chances, and his ice lost twenty-two goals.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2023-24ANA55121729-111640010911.018:07
2024-25 so far
Career55121729-111640010911.018:07

This Season So Far

The 2024-25 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

12 goals and 17 assists in 55 games — 29 points at 18:07 a night, minus-11, with 4 power-play goals on 109 shots, converting at 11.01 per cent, and 16 penalty minutes. His first NHL season, at 19.

50.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 803 minutes, the 52nd percentile — the only regular on this club at even chances. His ice went 20-42 against an expectation of 33.50-33.49.

That is the report in one line. The chances were exactly even and the goals were 20-42. A nineteen-year-old broke even against NHL opposition and was outscored by twenty-two, and almost none of it was his.

The Finesse Game

109 attempts at a median of 26 feet, with 42 per cent from inside 20 and 18 per cent from beyond 40, converting at 11.01 per cent.

The hockey sense is the best on this club and it is not close. He slows the game rather than speeding it up — he holds the puck a half-second past where a defenceman expects and the seam opens because of the delay rather than in spite of it. The passing is a first-line centre’s already.

Twelve goals in fifty-five games at nineteen, from a man who shoots from the middle of the ice rather than from the wall.

The Physical Game

6-3 and 208 at 19, and the body has not arrived yet. He protects the puck better than he wins it, and he will be moved off a wall by a grown defenceman.

16 penalty minutes in 55 games. He does not agitate, he does not retaliate, and there is nothing here to correct — the strength comes on its own.

The Intangibles

Second overall in 2023, out of Örebro, and an NHL centre at 18 playing eighteen minutes a night.

Everything about this season is encouraging except the goal column on his ice, and that column belongs to the roster rather than to him. He is the reason this club has a future and he is the one player on it who would be a top-six forward on any team in the league tomorrow.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 803 minutes

Expected goals
50%
53rd pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
50.4%
58th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 20 for, 42 against. Expected: 33.5 and 33.5.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
88th
Numbers
53rd

The report ranks him 35 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 41 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 75 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

2023-24 · 803 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, 2023-24

The club
ANA took 45.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.0% — 4.1 above the club he did it on.
The role
Second line, 803 minutes at five-on-five — 39th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Troy Terry50.0%49.9%41.7%
Alex Killorn50.1%49.8%44.4%
Cam Fowler47.5%51.7%45.7%

50.0% together, 49.9% for him apart and 41.7% for Terry apart. Terry was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Terry 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 2023-24, 14 of them goals. His median goal came from 14 feet. 42% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 18% from beyond forty.