Nick Ritchie
Arizona Coyotes Left Wing
Six-three and 236, 12.68 hits per 60 at the 94th percentile, and a penalty differential of minus-1.24 — the 0th percentile in the league.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-16 | ANA | 33 | 2 | 2 | 4 | -2 | 37 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 55 | 3.6 | 11:46 |
| 2016-17 | ANA | 77 | 14 | 14 | 28 | +4 | 62 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 149 | 9.4 | 12:59 |
| 2017-18 | ANA | 76 | 10 | 17 | 27 | +3 | 72 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 122 | 8.2 | 13:11 |
| 2018-19 | ANA | 60 | 9 | 22 | 31 | +6 | 82 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 96 | 9.4 | 15:00 |
| 2019-20 | ANA/BOS | 48 | 9 | 12 | 21 | +1 | 97 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 78 | 11.5 | 14:08 |
| 2020-21 | BOS | 56 | 15 | 11 | 26 | -7 | 37 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 121 | 12.4 | 15:22 |
| 2021-22 | TOR/ARI | 57 | 12 | 11 | 23 | -13 | 43 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 93 | 12.9 | 12:43 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 407 | 71 | 89 | 160 | -8 | 430 | 12 | 0 | 11 | 714 | 9.9 | 13:39 |
This Season So Far
The 2022-23 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
With Toronto, then Arizona. 12 goals and 11 assists in 57 games — 23 points at 12:43 a night, minus-13, with 1 power-play goal on 93 shots and 43 penalty minutes.
Toronto signed him for two years in the summer of 2021 and traded him in February. Arizona took the contract and got 12 goals out of the season, which is more than Toronto did.
47.1 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 648 minutes, the 27th percentile. His ice went 25-36 against an expectation of 26.52-29.78 — a goal and a half of scoring missing and six more conceded than the chances predicted.
The Finesse Game
93 attempts at a median of 18 feet with 61 per cent of them from inside the slot, the 82nd percentile, at 95.4 mph — the 87th percentile of shot velocity. A heavy shot taken from close range is a genuine skill and 12 goals in 57 games is a real return on it.
0.75 takeaways per 60 is the 2nd percentile among forwards. He does not win pucks. He receives them, and on a fourth line that is often the same thing as not getting them.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 236, and 12.68 hits per 60 is the 94th percentile among the league forwards. He is one of the heaviest bodies in hockey and he uses it every shift.
And it costs more than it earns. 1.57 penalties taken per 60 is the 92nd percentile, 0.33 drawn is the 6th, and minus-1.24 on penalties drawn against taken is the 0th percentile among forwards. Nobody in the league gave away more power plays relative to what he won back. On the worst penalty kill in hockey that is a specific and expensive fault.
Top speed 21.1 mph is the 2nd percentile among forwards. He is very slow, and a slow heavy forward reaches the puck late, which is exactly when a check becomes an interference call.
The Intangibles
Tenth overall in 2014 by Anaheim, 407 games, 160 points and 430 penalty minutes across Anaheim, Boston, Toronto and now here.
He is 26, and there is a real player inside this: the shot chart is good and 12 goals in a fourth-line role is useful. What has to change is the discipline, and it has not changed at any of four organisations.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
- he lacks itraised, and he does not have it
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
“12.68 hits per 60 is the 94th percentile among the league forwards”
“minus-1.24 on penalties drawn against taken is the 0th percentile among forwards”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 648 minutes
- Expected goals
- 47.1%
- 33rd pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.5%
- 50th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 25 for, 36 against. Expected: 26.5 and 29.8.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 24 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 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 50 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, 2021-22 · 57 games
- Top speed
- 21.1 mph
- 16th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.58 a game
- Distance
- 2.00 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 95.4 mph
- 91st pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.0
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.1
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.
Usual linemates
2021-22 with TOR · 357 minutes at five-on-five
- Jason Spezzaoff the roster34%
- Mitch Marner33%
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, 2021-22
- The club
- ARI took 42.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.1% — 4.3 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Fourth line, 648 minutes at five-on-five — 27th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barrett Hayton | 40.4% | 48.7% | 48.6% |
| Loui Eriksson | 38.5% | 49.0% | 40.8% |
| Jake Muzzin | 50.0% | 46.6% | 52.7% |
40.4% together, 48.7% for him apart and 48.6% for Hayton 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
132 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 12 of them goals. His median goal came from 10 feet. 55% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 16% from beyond forty.