Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

24

Mathieu Olivier

Columbus Blue Jackets Right Wing

Undrafted, 232 pounds, and 239 penalty minutes in 168 games.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2019-20NSH8011+1400060.07:33
2020-21NSH30325-1701002512.010:55
2021-22NSH10011-31400050.010:06
2022-23CBJ6651015-2081001756.711:38
2023-24CBJ545712-470011559.111:17
2024-25 so far
Career168132134-272391121667.811:06

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

5 goals and 7 assists in 54 games — 12 points at 11:17 a night, minus-4, with 1 shorthanded goal and 1 game-winner on 55 shots at 9.09 per cent, and 70 penalty minutes.

44.7 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 579 minutes, the 17th percentile. His ice went 24-33 against an expectation of 21.03-26.05 — seven goals conceded above expectation.

The Finesse Game

55 attempts at a median of 20 feet, with 50 per cent from inside 20 and 19 per cent from beyond 40, converting at 9.09 per cent. Thirteen goals in 168 NHL games.

7 assists. He does not create, he does not carry the puck and the club does not ask — the job is to arrive first, finish the check and change.

The Physical Game

6-1 and 232, and this is the entire report. He finishes every check and he hurts people, and he leads most lineups he is in for hits despite playing eleven minutes.

239 penalty minutes in 168 games — a minute and a half a game across five seasons — and he will fight anybody. He takes liberties and he answers for them.

The Intangibles

Undrafted, out of Rimouski, and 168 NHL games at 27 across five seasons and two clubs.

An undrafted forward who reaches the NHL by being 232 pounds and willing has one skill and it is a real one, and on a club that conceded 300 goals and was 31st at suppressing chances, seventy penalty minutes in fifty-four games is a cost the results do not obviously justify.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 579 minutes

Expected goals
44.7%
18th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
45.9%
21st pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 24 for, 33 against. Expected: 21.0 and 26.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
40th
Numbers
18th

The report ranks him 22 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 201 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 62 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 · 579 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
CBJ took 45.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 44.7% — 1.2 below the club he did it on.
The role
579 minutes at five-on-five — 23rd percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Sean Kuraly46.8%42.1%42.2%
Erik Gudbranson39.6%47.3%44.7%
Zach Werenski42.4%45.7%48.0%

46.8% together, 42.1% for him apart and 42.2% for Kuraly 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

78 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 5 of them goals. His median goal came from 7 feet. 50% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 19% from beyond forty.