Armchair Hockey Scout Beta
23

Michael Sgarbossa

Washington Capitals Center

Undrafted, and 90 NHL games across eight seasons.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2012-13COL6000-3400060.010:22
2014-15COL301101000020.07:06
2015-16ANA10000000008:21
2016-17ANA/FLA38279-59100336.111:09
2019-20WSH20000000010.08:07
2020-21WSH5022+2000040.09:48
2021-22WSH10224+300001118.29:54
2023-24WSH25437020012714.810:58
2024-25 so far
Career9081523-325101849.510:36

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

25 games, 4 goals and 3 assists for 7 points, 2 penalty minutes, 10:58 a night and even, with 1 game-winner. He took 47.2 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 261 minutes, the 33rd percentile, and his ice went 8-8 against an expectation of 8.32-9.31.

Level at both ends. Four goals in 25 games at eleven minutes a night is the best rate of his career and the sample is a third of a season.

The Finesse Game

37 attempts at a median of 18 feet with 51 per cent of them from inside twenty and 11 per cent from beyond forty, 25 of those on goal, converted at 14.8 per cent against a career 9.52 across 84 shots.

Eight career goals and 15 assists in 90 games. An eighteen-foot median attempt with half of them from inside twenty feet is a centre who gets to the slot; the reason he has played 90 games in eight seasons is not the location of his shots.

The Physical Game

He is 6-0 and 179 and took 2 penalty minutes in 25 games.

Twenty-five career penalty minutes in 90 games. He is one of the lightest forwards on the roster and plays no physical game at all; the puck is won with anticipation and given up as soon as anybody arrives.

The Intangibles

Undrafted, eight seasons, and Washington is his fourth organisation.

A career minus-3 in 90 games from a man nobody drafted. He is 32, he has played 90 NHL games across eight seasons, and 25 of them came last season.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 261 minutes

Expected goals
47.2%
33rd pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
48.3%
38th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 8 for, 8 against. Expected: 8.3 and 9.3.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
72nd
Numbers
33rd

The report ranks him 39 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 74 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 · 261 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
WSH took 47.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.2% — level with the club he did it on.
The role
261 minutes at five-on-five — 4th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Nick Jensen40.0%51.8%45.4%
Beck Malenstyn35.6%54.3%39.6%
Trevor van Riemsdyk41.8%49.9%49.8%

40.0% together, 51.8% for him apart and 45.4% for Jensen apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.

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 2023-24, 4 of them goals. His median goal came from 21 feet. 51% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 11% from beyond forty.