This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Liam O'Brien
Utah Mammoth Center
Undrafted, 50 penalty minutes in 28 games, and 491 in 227 career games.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-15 | WSH | 13 | 1 | 1 | 2 | +4 | 23 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 6.3 | 7:33 |
| 2016-17 | WSH | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 6:08 |
| 2017-18 | WSH | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 | 6:55 |
| 2020-21 | COL | 12 | 0 | 3 | 3 | +1 | 40 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0.0 | 6:34 |
| 2021-22 | ARI | 39 | 2 | 1 | 3 | +1 | 106 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 36 | 5.6 | 9:29 |
| 2022-23 | ARI | 56 | 3 | 8 | 11 | -5 | 114 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 39 | 7.7 | 11:26 |
| 2023-24 | ARI | 75 | 5 | 9 | 14 | 0 | 153 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 72 | 6.9 | 9:44 |
| 2024-25 | UTA | 28 | 0 | 2 | 2 | +1 | 50 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 34 | 0.0 | 9:18 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 227 | 11 | 24 | 35 | +2 | 491 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 204 | 5.4 | 9:43 |
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
No goals and 2 assists in 28 games — 2 points at 9:18 a night, with 50 penalty minutes.
50.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 56th percentile, across 249 minutes, which on a sample that size is not evidence of anything. He is a thirteenth forward and the penalty minutes are the point.
The Finesse Game
34 shot attempts in 28 games and no goals. 35 points in 227 career NHL games is the whole record.
45 per cent of his attempts came from inside 20 feet, which says he goes to the right places. There is no finish and there never has been.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 215 and among the most willing fighters in the league. He hits extremely hard and he answers everything.
50 penalty minutes in 28 games, and 491 in 227 career games — which is a rate among the highest in hockey. He crosses the line deliberately and that is the employment.
The Intangibles
Undrafted, and he spent eight seasons in the American League between short NHL calls before finally holding a job at 29.
227 games across two organisations. He is 31, and a club whose three best forwards weigh under 195 pounds has a reason to dress him.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
“**Undrafted**, and he spent eight seasons in the American League between short NHL calls before finally holding a job at 29.”
“He hits extremely hard and he answers everything.”
“He hits extremely hard and he answers everything.”
“**50 penalty minutes in 28 games, and 491 in 227 career games** — which is a rate among the highest in hockey. He crosses the line deliberately and that is the employment.”
“45 per cent of his attempts came from inside 20 feet, which says he goes to the right places.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 249 minutes
- Expected goals
- 50%
- 53rd pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.9%
- 51st pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 9 for, 7 against. Expected: 9.5 and 9.5.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 44 points above where the report does. 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 — 63 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, 2024-25 · 28 games
- Top speed
- 22.2 mph
- 45th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.04 a game
- Distance
- 1.52 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 82.0 mph
- 28th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.2
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 83.9
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.
Usual linemates
2024-25 · 249 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
- UTA took 53.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.0% — 3.2 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 249 minutes at five-on-five — 3rd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nick Bjugstad | 52.3% | 47.7% | 51.4% |
| Ian Cole | 47.4% | 51.7% | 53.4% |
| Olli Maatta | 47.8% | 50.9% | 51.0% |
52.3% together, 47.7% for him apart and 51.4% for Bjugstad apart. He was worse away from Bjugstad, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Bjugstad did.
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
53 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 0 of them goals. 45% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 13% from beyond forty.