Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

91

Leo Carlsson

Mighty Ducks of Anaheim Center

20 goals at 20 on a 17.5 per cent rate, and the only forward here whose on-ice goals beat what the chances deserved.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2023-24ANA55121729-111640010911.018:07
2024-25ANA76202545+61441511417.516:14
2025-26 so far
Career131324274-53081522314.317:01

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

20 goals and 25 assists in 76 games for 45 points, plus-6, on 16:14 a night — a plus rating on a club that conceded 250 goals, which almost nobody here managed.

44.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 13th percentile, which sounds damning until you see that every forward on this roster is in that neighbourhood. His on-ice goals were 39-35 against an expected 35-44: the only regular forward whose results ran ahead of the chances.

The Finesse Game

A 6-3 centre who plays a slow, deliberate, possession game and is almost never rushed. He protects the puck below the goal line, waits for a lane, and makes the pass a beat later than a defenceman expects — the vision is the best thing here and it is unusual in a 20-year-old.

42 per cent of his shots come from inside 20 feet and he converted at 17.5 per cent, which is high and not absurd given the locations. What he does not yet have is a release that beats a goaltender from distance, and the skating is good rather than dangerous — he separates with body position, not speed.

The Physical Game

6-3 and 208 and still filling out. He is already difficult to move off a puck and he takes contact to make plays without seeking it, which is the profile of a man who will be very hard to defend at 24.

14 penalty minutes in 76 games. The club has managed his workload carefully since he arrived, and this was the first season he played something close to a full one.

The Intangibles

The 2nd overall pick, handed a top-six job at 18 on a bad team, and there has been no visible discouragement in two seasons of losing.

The honest reading is that he is the most important player in the organisation and the one whose development the rest of it is waiting on. 45 points at 20 in this environment is a genuine indicator; a 17.5 per cent shooting rate is not, and the next season will look worse before it looks better.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 944 minutes

Expected goals
44.8%
13th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
47.3%
27th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 39 for, 35 against. Expected: 35.4 and 43.7.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
86th
Numbers
13th

The report ranks him 73 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 315 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 80 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 · 944 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
ANA took 44.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 44.8% — 0.2 above the club he did it on.
The role
Second line, 944 minutes at five-on-five — 52nd percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Alex Killorn46.2%39.6%53.0%
Radko Gudas43.8%45.2%46.8%
Olen Zellweger46.9%43.9%45.8%

46.2% together, 39.6% for him apart and 53.0% for Killorn apart. He was the one being carried: the share went with Killorn and did not follow 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

174 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 21 of them goals. His median goal came from 15 feet. 42% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 16% from beyond forty.