Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

72

Nick Bjugstad

St. Louis Blues Center

Six-foot-six, 760 games, and 19 points in Utah before St. Louis signed him for the fourth line.

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
2025-26 so far
Career760157173330-153442232016579.514:46

This Season So Far

The 2025-26 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

8 goals and 11 assists in 66 games for Utah — 19 points at 12:19 a night, minus-2, with 16 penalty minutes on 115 shots.

A 7.0 per cent conversion, which is the lowest of his career in a full season. He scored 22 goals in Arizona two years earlier and the decline since has been steep.

The Finesse Game

115 attempts and 8 goals. The shot is real and the release from a man this size is slower than it needs to be, and at 33 that has stopped being survivable.

11 assists in 66 games. There is no creation; he is a net-front body who converts what deflects off him.

The Physical Game

6-6 and 210 and he has never played as heavy as the frame suggests. He goes to the front of the net and he is difficult to move once set, and he does not initiate much.

16 penalty minutes in 66 games is a low rate. He is not an agitator and he does not take liberties; the size is used for position rather than for contact.

The Intangibles

Nineteenth overall in 2010 and 760 games and 330 points across six organisations in thirteen seasons.

He is 33 and St. Louis signed him in the summer. On a club whose fourth line was the most productive part of the roster last season, the job is to be the largest man on it.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 724 minutes

Expected goals
51.2%
64th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
50.9%
63rd pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 22 for, 31 against. Expected: 30.5 and 29.0.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
17th
Numbers
64th

The numbers rank him 47 points above where the report does. 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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 66 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

2024-25 with UTA · 724 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, 2024-25

The club
UTA took 53.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.2% — 2.0 below the club he did it on.
The role
Fourth line, 724 minutes at five-on-five — 30th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Lawson Crouse53.1%49.0%56.2%
Michael Kesselring50.6%51.6%54.2%
Ian Cole54.2%49.5%53.2%

53.1% together, 49.0% for him apart and 56.2% for Crouse apart. He was the one being carried: the share went with Crouse and did not follow 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

158 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 8 of them goals. His median goal came from 18 feet. 29% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 22% from beyond forty.