This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Marcus Foligno

The highest shooting percentage of all 393 qualified forwards — 23.5 per cent — off the 33rd-fewest shots per 60.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2011-12	BUF	14	6	7	13	+6	9	2	0	1	23	26.1	15:49
2012-13	BUF	47	5	13	18	-4	41	1	0	0	55	9.1	13:38
2013-14	BUF	74	7	12	19	-17	82	0	1	3	79	8.9	15:04
2014-15	BUF	57	8	12	20	-5	50	0	0	0	66	12.1	16:14
2015-16	BUF	75	10	13	23	+4	79	0	2	2	81	12.3	13:11
2016-17	BUF	80	13	10	23	-1	73	0	1	0	97	13.4	15:28
2017-18	MIN	77	8	15	23	+2	72	1	0	2	79	10.1	10:52
2018-19	MIN	82	7	12	19	-1	55	0	0	0	91	7.7	11:58
2019-20	MIN	59	11	14	25	+8	30	0	0	0	86	12.8	14:35
2020-21	MIN	39	11	15	26	+19	49	0	1	2	40	27.5	14:58
2021-22	MIN	74	23	19	42	+25	112	5	0	3	98	23.5	16:24
2022-23 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	678	109	142	251	+36	652	9	5	13	795	13.7	14:10

This Season So Far

The 2022-23 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

23 goals and 19 assists in seventy-four games at 16:24 a night, plus-25, 112 penalty minutes. His previous best was thirteen goals, in 2016-17, and his ten seasons before this one produced 86 goals in total.

The Finesse Game

This is the single most extreme finishing line in the edition. 23.5 per cent is the highest shooting percentage of all 393 qualified forwards in the league — and 4.84 shots per 60 is the 33rd-fewest. Twenty-three goals on ninety-eight shots.

His career shot totals run between 40 and 97 a season, so the volume is normal for him. The conversion is not normal for anybody.

The locations argue it was not pure luck: 57 per cent of his shots came from the slot at a 19-foot median, the 13th percentile for distance. He shoots rarely and only from the paint, which is the shot chart most likely to produce a high percentage — but not this one.

58.2 per cent of the expected goals is the 95th percentile, the second-best on the club. His ice went 47-24 against an expectation of 36.74-26.36.

Beside Mathew Dumba he took 62.7 per cent across 494 attempts, against Dumba’s 47.7 alone. With Jordan Greenway, 58.7 against Greenway’s 46.4 alone.

The Physical Game

11.76 hits per 60 is the 93rd percentile at 6-3 and 226 pounds, with 652 career penalty minutes behind it. He killed 1:52 a night, the 87th percentile.

1.58 penalties taken per 60 is the 92nd percentile and the net is the 11th, on a club that killed 5:23 a night. That is the largest short-handed workload in this batch and he is contributing to it.

The Intangibles

8.95 miles per 60 is the 5th percentile, 2.8 bursts per 60 the 17th, and 22.1 mph the 29th. He is one of the least mobile forwards in the league by all three chip readings.

He is 31. Nothing about a 23.5 per cent shooting season repeats, and pricing him at twenty-three goals would be the clearest available way to lose money on this roster. What does repeat is the chance share, the hits and the kill minutes — that is a useful third-line winger, and it is not a scorer.

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.

measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
he lacks itraised, and he does not have it

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.

drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
58.2% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 52.5% for his club in the minutes he sat: +5.7, 92nd percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
punishinga strength· finishes checks; hurts people legally
“11.76 hits per 60 is the 93rd percentile at 6-3 and 226 pounds, with 652 career penalty minutes behind it.”
net-fronta strength· lives in the blue paint; the screens and the tips
“57 per cent of his shots came from the slot at a 19-foot median, the 13th percentile for distance.”
fouls-when-beatenhe lacks it· the stick foul that follows losing a step
“1.58 penalties taken per 60 is the 92nd percentile and the net is the 11th, on a club that killed 5:23 a night.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 940 minutes

Expected goals: 58.2%; 97th pct
Shot attempts: 52.2%; 73rd pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 47 for, 24 against. Expected: 36.7 and 26.4.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

63rd

Numbers

97th

The numbers rank him 34 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 649 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, 2021-22 · 74 games

Top speed: 22.1 mph; 48th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.76 a game
Distance: 2.45 miles a game
Hardest shot: 92.5 mph; 79th pct

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

2021-22 · 940 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, 2021-22

The club: MIN took 53.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 58.2% — 4.5 above the club he did it on.
The role: Second line, 940 minutes at five-on-five — 55th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Joel Eriksson Ek	59.5%	55.1%	53.9%
Jordan Greenway	58.7%	57.5%	46.4%
Jonas Brodin	61.8%	55.9%	54.2%

59.5% together, 55.1% for him apart and 53.9% for Eriksson Ek 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

128 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 22 of them goals. His median goal came from 13 feet. 51% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 15% from beyond forty.