This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Mathew Barzal
New York Islanders Center
Three hundred and fourteen assists in 500 games, and 128 goals.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-17 | NYI | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 9:45 |
| 2017-18 | NYI | 82 | 22 | 63 | 85 | +1 | 30 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 170 | 12.9 | 17:46 |
| 2018-19 | NYI | 82 | 18 | 44 | 62 | -5 | 46 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 179 | 10.1 | 17:55 |
| 2019-20 | NYI | 68 | 19 | 41 | 60 | +5 | 44 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 171 | 11.1 | 20:03 |
| 2020-21 | NYI | 55 | 17 | 28 | 45 | +15 | 48 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 134 | 12.7 | 18:43 |
| 2021-22 | NYI | 73 | 15 | 44 | 59 | -15 | 18 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 161 | 9.3 | 18:01 |
| 2022-23 | NYI | 58 | 14 | 37 | 51 | +5 | 22 | 4 | 0 | 5 | 139 | 10.1 | 18:43 |
| 2023-24 | NYI | 80 | 23 | 57 | 80 | -4 | 34 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 240 | 9.6 | 20:08 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 500 | 128 | 314 | 442 | 0 | 248 | 23 | 0 | 20 | 1194 | 10.7 | 18:42 |
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
80 games, 23 goals and 57 assists for 80 points, 5 on the power play, 34 penalty minutes, 20:08 a night and minus-4. He took 52.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,284 minutes, the 74th percentile, and his ice went 62-54 against an expectation of 62.42-55.88.
Level with the chances at one end and two fewer conceded than they called for at the other. Eighty points is the best total on a club that finished twenty-second in scoring.
The Finesse Game
320 attempts at a median of 27 feet with 32 per cent from inside 20, 240 of them on goal, converted at 9.6 per cent against a career 10.72.
314 career assists in 500 games against 128 goals. That ratio is the whole player: he is the fastest man on this roster, carries the puck through the neutral zone at a speed nobody else here can, and then looks for a pass. Twenty-three goals is about the ceiling.
The Physical Game
He is 6-1 and 186 and does not play a physical game.
34 penalty minutes in 80 games is a low rate and most of it is a stick. He does not forecheck by force, does not win the wall, and is moved off the puck by anybody who reaches him.
The Intangibles
Sixteenth overall in 2015 out of Coquitlam, eight seasons, 500 games and 442 points, all of it for one organisation.
He is 27 and the club has given him twenty minutes a night for six years. On a roster that plays more five-on-five than anybody in the league, the one man who can carry a puck through a neutral zone matters more than the point total says.
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.
- durable· was available
80 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
- workhorse· carries the load at even strength
16:03 a game at five-on-five, 98th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
“That ratio is the whole player: he is the fastest man on this roster, carries the puck through the neutral zone at a speed nobody else here can, and then looks for a pass.”
“314 career assists in 500 games against 128 goals.”
“He is 6-1 and 186 and does not play a physical game.”
“He does not forecheck by force, does not win the wall, and is moved off the puck by anybody who reaches him.”
“He does not forecheck by force, does not win the wall, and is moved off the puck by anybody who reaches him.”
“He does not forecheck by force, does not win the wall, and is moved off the puck by anybody who reaches him.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,284 minutes
- Expected goals
- 52.8%
- 74th pct
- Shot attempts
- 51.8%
- 70th 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: 62 for, 54 against. Expected: 62.4 and 55.9.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 2 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 652 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.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2023-24 · 80 games
- Top speed
- 23.5 mph
- 97th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 4.21 a game
- Distance
- 3.34 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 92.8 mph
- 84th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.1
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.5
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
2023-24 · 1284 minutes at five-on-five
- Bo Horvat74%
- Anders Lee48%
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
- NYI took 49.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 52.8% — 3.7 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First line, 1,284 minutes at five-on-five — 89th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bo Horvat | 55.2% | 44.9% | 44.6% |
| Anders Lee | 54.4% | 51.1% | 52.1% |
| Noah Dobson | 51.5% | 53.8% | 48.4% |
55.2% together, 44.9% for him apart and 44.6% for Horvat 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
320 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 23 of them goals. His median goal came from 18 feet. 33% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 17% from beyond forty.