Armchair Hockey Scout

Ask the book

2026-27 edition Ask a direct question about this edition of the book — who, how many, how common, which group more — and it is answered with a table computed on this page from the edition’s index: the season line, height and age, the on-ice percentiles, the grades and the traits read out of every report. Ask for a view on named players — what a comparison comes down to, what makes a man — and you get the book’s reading of their own pages, and only those. The model turns your question into a query and phrases the result, or reads the pages it is handed; it never originates a figure, and an answer carrying a figure that is on neither the table nor the pages is withheld. It does not forecast, and it says so when a question is outside what the book holds.

Tables are computed on this page from the 2026-27 edition’s index; readings rest on the players’ own pages; the model never counts. Twenty questions an hour.

Nick Bjugstad

Photo by Resolute, CC BY-SA 3.0

Nick Bjugstad

New Jersey Devils Center #72

6-6, 821 games, and 9 points.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2012-13FLA11101-82000175.915:13
2013-14FLA76162238-14160141858.616:13
2014-15FLA72241943-73870320711.616:35
2015-16FLA67151934-8416031718.815:31
2016-17FLA547714-1922101917.713:09
2017-18FLA82193049+5411012308.315:07
2018-19FLA/PIT64141226+6302021549.115:08
2019-20PIT13112+38000185.612:14
2020-21MIN4461117+717003787.711:49
2021-22MIN577613-220100818.610:16
2022-23ARI/EDM78171229+133411114511.716:12
2023-24ARI76222345+115921216513.317:27
2024-25UTA6681119-2161001157.012:19
2025-26STL/NJD61639-1133011777.810:56
2026-27 so far—————————————
Career—821163176339-263772242117349.414:29

This Season So Far

The 2026-27 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

6 goals and 3 assists in 61 games — 9 points, minus-11, at 10:56 a night with 33 penalty minutes. His 5-on-5 work was done in St. Louis. His 821st career game.

The Finesse Game

Thin and getting thinner. 114 unblocked attempts, 6 goals, median 26 feet with 36 per cent from inside 20 — fair ice, no conversion.

3 assists in 61 games is close to the lowest playmaking return in this edition. 163 goals and 176 assists in 821 games is a useful career; 9 points at 34 is the end of one.

The Physical Game

6-6 and 210 pounds, which is tall rather than heavy, and it has always been the criticism — he does not play to his size and never has. 33 penalty minutes.

He takes defensive-zone draws, kills penalties, and screens on the power play. The skating for a man this long is adequate in a straight line and poor in tight.

The Intangibles

45.1 per cent of the expected goals, 15th percentile, and 45.0 per cent of the shot attempts, 11th, across 618 minutes in St. Louis. Those are among the weaker figures a regular posted last season.

1 point in his last 10, and it was not a goal.

He is 34, a 19th overall pick, and joins a New Jersey club whose fourth line was a revolving injury ward. This is a thirteenth-forward page and the numbers do not support arguing otherwise.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 618 minutes

Expected goals
45.1%
16th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
45%
12th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 16 for, 26 against. Expected: 22.2 and 27.1.

The eye and the numbers

Sighted
Report
11th
Numbers
16th

The two rank him within 5 points of one another. It was written with these numbers on screen, so the agreement is not corroboration — the arithmetic is on both sides of it.

Both bars are percentiles among the 656 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.

Tracked

NHL Edge, 2025-26 · 61 games

Top speed
21.6 mph
26th pct

fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.2

Bursts over 20 mph
1.15 a game

how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes

Distance
1.82 miles a game

skated, all strengths

Hardest shot
81.0 mph
25th pct

one shot; the league's average best is 83.6

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.

Recent form

Last 20 appearances, 2025-26, oldest first

1

points in his last 10 games — 0 goals, 1 assists, 12 shots

Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.

Usual linemates

2025-26 with STL · 371 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, 2025-26

The club
NJD took 50.4% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 45.1% — 5.3 below the club he did it on.
The role
618 minutes at five-on-five — 25th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Philip Broberg50.6%43.3%51.7%
Colton Parayko44.3%45.3%52.1%
Nathan Walker49.1%43.9%45.1%

50.6% together, 43.3% for him apart and 51.7% for Broberg apart. He was worse away from Broberg, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Broberg did.

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

114 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 6 of them goals. His median goal came from 25 feet. 36% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 20% from beyond forty.