This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Michael McCarron
Nashville Predators Center
Six foot six, 232 pounds, 100 penalty minutes, and twelve goals from twelve minutes a night.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | MTL | 20 | 1 | 1 | 2 | -10 | 37 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 41 | 2.4 | 11:41 |
| 2016-17 | MTL | 31 | 1 | 4 | 5 | -4 | 41 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 31 | 3.2 | 9:53 |
| 2017-18 | MTL | 18 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -1 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 0.0 | 8:46 |
| 2020-21 | NSH | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +1 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0.0 | 10:18 |
| 2021-22 | NSH | 51 | 7 | 7 | 14 | +10 | 70 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 51 | 13.7 | 10:23 |
| 2022-23 | NSH | 32 | 2 | 2 | 4 | -3 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 39 | 5.1 | 10:33 |
| 2023-24 | NSH | 70 | 12 | 10 | 22 | +4 | 100 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 94 | 12.8 | 12:46 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 228 | 23 | 25 | 48 | -3 | 320 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 274 | 8.4 | 11:03 |
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
70 games, 12 goals and 10 assists for 22 points, 100 penalty minutes, 12:46 a night and plus-4. He took 50.9 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 802 minutes, the 60th percentile, and his ice went 32-31 against an expectation of 32.27-31.18.
Level at both ends, which for a fourth-line centre on a club that finished eleventh is exactly the job. Twelve goals is a career high by five and the hundred penalty minutes are the point of him.
The Finesse Game
94 shots at a median of 21 feet with 46 per cent from inside 20, converted at 12.8 per cent against a career 8.39.
25 career assists in 228 games. Twelve goals on ninety-four shots is well above his own rate and the shot chart says why — everything comes from within twenty-five feet, because that is where a 6-6 centre standing in front of a goaltender scores from.
The Physical Game
He hits harder than anybody on this roster at 6-6 and 232, and 320 career penalty minutes in 228 games is what that produces.
He will fight anybody, clears the crease, takes liberties after the whistle, and cannot be moved from in front of a net. On a club that spends the ninth-most time shorthanded in hockey, a hundred minutes from a fourth-line centre is a real cost.
The Intangibles
Twenty-fifth overall in 2013 by Montreal, out of Grosse Pointe, seven seasons across two organisations, and 48 points in 228 games.
He is 29 and had by a distance the best season of his career. A first-round pick who spent five years in the minors before making himself into a useful fourth-line centre is a better story than the draft position suggests.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 802 minutes
- Expected goals
- 50.9%
- 60th pct
- Shot attempts
- 48%
- 35th 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: 32 for, 31 against. Expected: 32.3 and 31.2.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 18 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 415 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 64 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 · 802 minutes at five-on-five
- Cole Smith58%
- Kiefer Sherwoodnow VAN45%
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
- NSH took 52.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.9% — 1.6 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Fourth line, 802 minutes at five-on-five — 39th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cole Smith | 53.2% | 47.7% | 47.8% |
| Kiefer Sherwood | 51.8% | 50.1% | 53.2% |
| Roman Josi | 52.7% | 49.6% | 54.7% |
53.2% together, 47.7% for him apart and 47.8% for Smith 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
140 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 11 of them goals. His median goal came from 17 feet. 47% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 21% from beyond forty.