Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

63

Max Sasson

Vancouver Canucks Center

Undrafted, 29 games at 24, and 49 per cent of his shot attempts from inside 20 feet.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2024-25VAN29347+10000319.710:20
2025-26 so far
Career29347+10000319.710:20

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

3 goals and 4 assists in 29 games — 7 points at 10:20 a night, plus-1, on no penalty minutes at all.

50.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 56th percentile, across 273 minutes. His ice went 10-13 against an expectation of 9.04-8.89, which on that sample settles nothing.

The Finesse Game

31 attempts at a median of 20 feet with 49 per cent from inside 20, and 3 goals. He goes to the right places and there is not much finish yet.

4 assists in 29 games. The skating is the asset — he is quick and he closes on pucks — and the offensive game is unformed at NHL level.

The Physical Game

6-1 and 181 and light. He does not forecheck with force and he will not win a puck against a defenceman.

Zero penalty minutes in 29 games. He is disciplined to the point of invisibility in that half of the game, which for a fourth-line forward is neutral.

The Intangibles

Undrafted out of Western Michigan, and he signed here in 2023 and reached the NHL at 24.

29 games. He is 25 and a thirteenth forward, which on a club with this little forward depth is a job that gets played.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 273 minutes

Expected goals
50.4%
57th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
45.2%
12th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 10 for, 13 against. Expected: 9.0 and 8.9.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
25th
Numbers
57th

The numbers rank him 32 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 — 68 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

2024-25 · 273 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
VAN took 49.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.4% — 1.3 above the club he did it on.
The role
273 minutes at five-on-five — 5th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Danton Heinen45.9%53.0%47.6%
Quinn Hughes53.4%49.1%53.4%
Carson Soucy51.3%50.0%45.3%

45.9% together, 53.0% for him apart and 47.6% for Heinen apart. He was better away from Heinen, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Heinen.

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

37 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 3 of them goals. His median goal came from 15 feet. 49% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 24% from beyond forty.