This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2025-26 report →
Michael Pezzetta
Montreal Canadiens Left Wing
Nine minutes a night, seventy-seven penalty minutes, and the lowest distance reading in these five chapters.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-22 | MTL | 51 | 5 | 6 | 11 | -7 | 81 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 49 | 10.2 | 7:50 |
| 2022-23 | MTL | 63 | 7 | 8 | 15 | -4 | 77 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 70 | 10.0 | 9:19 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 114 | 12 | 14 | 26 | -11 | 158 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 119 | 10.1 | 8:39 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 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
7 goals and 8 assists in 63 games — 15 points — with 77 penalty minutes, at 9:19 a night. Minus-4, 70 shots at 10.0 per cent.
Seventy-seven penalty minutes from nine minutes a night is one of the highest rates in this book, and the season before it was 81 in fifty-one games at 7:50.
43.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 14th percentile, with his ice at 26-30 against an expectation of 18.45-23.66 — eight goals more at the offensive end than the chances deserved, which is Montreal’s finishing surplus arriving even on the fourth line.
Two seasons, 114 games, 26 points.
The Finesse Game
70 shots at a median of 25 feet, 40 per cent from inside twenty and 22 per cent from beyond forty.
Beyond forty: 14 shots on goal and no goals. Inside forty: 53 shots, 7 goals, 13.21 per cent.
Seventy shots from nine minutes a night is a high rate, and 13.21 per cent from inside forty is a good return for a fourth-line winger.
93.1 mph at the 65th percentile, on three slap shots.
The Physical Game
6-1 and 222, and 77 penalty minutes in 63 games.
1.55 miles a game is the lowest distance reading in these five chapters — nine minutes a night, and the figure is the ice time before it is anything else. Top speed 22.7 mph, the 75th percentile; bursts 1.5 a game, the 72nd.
He hits everything, fights when it is asked, and forechecks the first man on every shift he takes. At 222 pounds and nine minutes a night the whole of his value is compressed into that.
45.6 per cent of his five-on-five shifts started in the attacking zone, the 29th percentile.
The Intangibles
One hundred and sixtieth overall in 2016 to Montreal out of Sudbury, five American-league seasons, and an NHL job at twenty-four.
There is no projection to make. He is a fourth-line winger who fights, and on a club that has Xhekaj doing the same thing from the blue line, Montreal has decided it wants two of them.
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.
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
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.
“He hits everything, fights when it is asked, and forechecks the first man on every shift he takes.”
“He hits everything, fights when it is asked, and forechecks the first man on every shift he takes.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 561 minutes
- Expected goals
- 43.8%
- 14th pct
- Shot attempts
- 42.6%
- 7th 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: 26 for, 30 against. Expected: 18.4 and 23.7.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 20 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 638 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.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2022-23 · 63 games
- Top speed
- 22.7 mph
- 80th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.49 a game
- Distance
- 1.55 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 93.1 mph
- 83rd pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.0
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.9
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
2022-23 · 561 minutes at five-on-five
- Alex Belzileoff the roster35%
- Jake Evans29%
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, 2022-23
- The club
- MTL took 44.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 43.8% — 0.2 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Fourth line, 561 minutes at five-on-five — 20th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alex Belzile | 45.6% | 43.0% | 37.2% |
| Johnathan Kovacevic | 41.3% | 45.1% | 48.4% |
| Joel Edmundson | 48.6% | 41.7% | 41.3% |
45.6% together, 43.0% for him apart and 37.2% for Belzile apart. Belzile was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Belzile than for him.
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
85 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 8 of them goals. His median goal came from 11 feet. 41% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 22% from beyond forty.