Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

27

Michael Rasmussen

Detroit Red Wings Center

Six foot six and 222 pounds, 51 per cent of his shots from inside twenty feet, and the lowest chance share on the club.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2018-19DET6281018-8294007410.812:05
2020-21DET403912-526001624.814:48
2021-22DET80151227-256600212811.714:31
2022-23DET56101929+2430008811.415:06
2023-24DET75132033+84701310112.915:11
2024-25 so far
Career3134970119-2821141645310.814:20

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

Seventy-five games, 13 goals and 20 assists with 1 shorthanded, 47 penalty minutes, 15:11 a night and plus-8. He converted 12.87 per cent of 101 shots against a career 10.82 across 453.

He took 42.2 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 978 minutes, the 7th percentile and the lowest on the club, and his ice went 36-47 against an expectation of 32.09-44.00. He plays the hardest defensive-zone shifts among the forwards, which is most of the explanation and not all of it.

The Finesse Game

He shoots from a median of 19 feet with 51 per cent of his attempts from inside 20. At 6-6 he does not need to create the chance — he stands where the puck arrives and puts it in.

Seventy career assists in 313 games. There is no playmaking game and there is not much of a shot; 49 goals in 313 games is a third-line rate and it is what the ninth pick of a draft was supposed to improve on.

The Physical Game

He is 6-6 and 222 and he clears the front of his own net. On a club with the 28th-ranked penalty kill that is the single most needed thing anybody here does.

Forty-seven penalty minutes in 75 games is a moderate rate. He is hard to move from the paint and he wins the wall against most defencemen, and the skating is the limit — a quick forward beats him wide and there is nothing to be done.

The Intangibles

The ninth pick in 2017 out of Surrey, five seasons and 313 games, and a career minus-28. He was drafted to be a first-line centre and is a very useful third-line one.

He is 25 and the thing he does best — standing in front of a net at 6-6 — is the thing this club has least of.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 978 minutes

Expected goals
42.2%
8th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
43.4%
9th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 36 for, 47 against. Expected: 32.1 and 44.0.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
36th
Numbers
8th

The report ranks him 28 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 — 61 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 · 978 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
DET took 45.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 42.2% — 3.7 below the club he did it on.
The role
Second line, 978 minutes at five-on-five — 55th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Andrew Copp43.4%40.9%44.9%
Moritz Seider40.2%43.4%44.5%
Ben Chiarot37.5%44.7%47.4%

43.4% together, 40.9% for him apart and 44.9% for Copp apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.

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

142 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 13 of them goals. His median goal came from 15 feet. 51% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 16% from beyond forty.