Photo by Tlop2000, CC BY-SA 4.0

Matthew Tkachuk

13 feet — the shortest average shot in this book — from a man who played 31 games.

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

2016-17	CGY	76	13	35	48	+14	105	3	0	2	142	9.2	14:40
2017-18	CGY	68	24	25	49	-1	61	10	0	2	188	12.8	17:15
2018-19	CGY	80	34	43	77	+14	62	11	0	2	207	16.4	17:36
2019-20	CGY	69	23	38	61	-5	74	5	0	4	188	12.2	18:18
2020-21	CGY	56	16	27	43	+6	55	4	0	0	151	10.6	18:09
2021-22	CGY	82	42	62	104	+57	68	12	0	6	253	16.6	17:54
2022-23	FLA	79	40	69	109	+29	123	14	0	6	322	12.4	20:26
2023-24	FLA	80	26	62	88	+19	88	6	1	2	280	9.3	18:38
2024-25	FLA	52	22	35	57	-3	54	11	0	2	156	14.1	18:14
2025-26	FLA	31	13	21	34	-6	48	4	0	1	88	14.8	18:18
2026-27 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	673	253	417	670	+124	738	80	1	27	1975	12.8	17:55

This Season So Far

The 2026-27 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

13 goals and 21 assists in 31 games — 34 points, minus-6, at 18:18 a night with 48 penalty minutes. 51 games missed.

The Finesse Game

The shot chart is the most extreme of any skilled forward in this edition. 58 per cent of his unblocked attempts came from inside 20 feet, with a median of 13 — level with Bertuzzi and Benson, and both of those are net-front specialists rather than point-a-game playmakers.

He gets there because he is willing to be hit for it, and once he is there the hands are good enough to finish what most men would merely deflect. 21 assists in 31 games says the passing did not go anywhere either.

The Physical Game

6-2, 202, and one of the two or three most genuinely difficult players in the league to play against. 48 penalty minutes in a third of a season. He cross-checks, he talks, he arrives late, and he has built an entire career on being worth more than the penalties.

The body is now the concern. 51 games missed, after a spring played visibly hurt.

The Intangibles

53.1 per cent of the expected goals, 78th percentile, and 56.1 per cent of the shot attempts, 94th — second on the club behind Samoskevich — in only 417 minutes.

11 points in his last 10 games. He is 28, 670 points into 673 games, and when available he is the most important forward on a Stanley Cup team.

The word doing all the work in that sentence is available.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 417 minutes

Expected goals: 53.1%; 78th pct
Shot attempts: 56.1%; 93rd pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 18 for, 21 against. Expected: 21.0 and 18.6.

The eye and the numbers

Sighted

Report

99th

Numbers

78th

The report ranks him 21 points above where the numbers do. It was written with these numbers on screen and departs from them anyway, which makes the gap a judgment rather than an oversight. 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 656 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 87 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, 2025-26 · 31 games

Top speed: 20.3 mph; 3rd pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.06 a game
Distance: 2.64 miles a game
Hardest shot: 79.2 mph; 18th 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.

Recent form

Last 20 appearances, 2025-26, oldest first

points in his last 10 games — 4 goals, 7 assists, 26 shots

Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.

Usual linemates

2025-26 · 417 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, 2025-26

The club: FLA took 50.4% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 53.1% — 2.7 above the club he did it on.
The role: Third line, 417 minutes at five-on-five — 13th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Sam Bennett	51.0%	58.5%	50.6%
Carter Verhaeghe	49.9%	58.2%	52.4%
Gustav Forsling	53.3%	53.0%	52.3%

51.0% together, 58.5% for him apart and 50.6% for Bennett apart. He was better away from Bennett, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Bennett.

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

145 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 12 of them goals. His median goal came from 11 feet. 58% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 17% from beyond forty.