Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

20

Nick Paul

Tampa Bay Lightning Left Wing

Six-four and 234, with 24 goals and 9 of them on the power play.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2015-16OTT24235-36000287.112:12
2016-17OTT1000-2000040.016:29
2017-18OTT11101-40000119.17:54
2018-19OTT20112-104000303.38:28
2019-20OTT56911200240021038.714:27
2020-21OTT5651520+5190101054.816:05
2021-22OTT/TBL80161632-14392121669.616:31
2022-23TBL80171532+113341412014.216:10
2023-24TBL82242246-162790215315.717:16
2024-25 so far
Career4107583158-331521531072010.415:23

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

82 games, 24 goals and 22 assists for 46 points, 9 on the power play, 27 penalty minutes, 17:16 a night and minus-16, with 2 game-winners. He took 50.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,081 minutes, the 55th percentile, and his ice went 46-57 against an expectation of 40.67-40.11.

Five goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and seventeen more conceded than they called for. Twenty-four goals is a career high by seven and the minus-16 has almost nothing to do with him.

The Finesse Game

218 attempts at a median of 20 feet with 52 per cent of them from inside twenty, 151 of those on goal, converted at 15.7 per cent against a career 10.42 across 720 shots.

Seventy-five career goals in 410 games, and 15 of them on the power play. At 6-4 and 234 he takes half his attempts from inside twenty feet by standing in the paint and refusing to be moved, which is exactly the job a power play needs done.

The Physical Game

He is 6-4 and 234 and took 27 penalty minutes.

152 career penalty minutes in 410 games is a low total for a man that size. He is one of the heaviest forwards in this edition and plays a controlled physical game — he leans on people rather than running them, and he does not fight.

The Intangibles

One hundred and first overall in 2013 by Dallas, nine seasons, two organisations, and 158 points in 410 games.

A career minus-33 across nine seasons. He took until his seventh season to score more than ten goals and has scored 17 and 24 in the two since.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,081 minutes

Expected goals
50.3%
55th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
50.7%
60th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 46 for, 57 against. Expected: 40.7 and 40.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
87th
Numbers
55th

The report ranks him 32 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 — 78 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 · 1081 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
TBL took 50.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.3% — 0.2 below the club he did it on.
The role
Second line, 1,081 minutes at five-on-five — 69th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Nick Perbix46.1%52.5%52.8%
Victor Hedman49.9%50.6%53.1%
Darren Raddysh53.7%49.0%52.1%

46.1% together, 52.5% for him apart and 52.8% for Perbix 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

218 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 24 of them goals. His median goal came from 10 feet. 52% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 20% from beyond forty.