Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

8

Nick Schmaltz

Utah Hockey Club Center

Sixty-one points on ten penalty minutes in 79 games.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2016-17CHI6162228+106000669.113:16
2017-18CHI78213152+11840211817.818:14
2018-19CHI/ARI4071825-1285026211.317:49
2019-20ARI70113445+3202029511.615:32
2020-21ARI52102232-1163011059.517:03
2021-22ARI63233659+11440412318.718:15
2022-23ARI63223658+42060213216.719:43
2023-24ARI79223961-1610101315813.919:11
2024-25 so far
Career506122238360-101123411685914.217:27

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

79 games, 22 goals and 39 assists for 61 points, 10 on the power play, 1 shorthanded, 10 penalty minutes, 19:11 a night and minus-16, with 3 game-winners. He took 49.5 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,166 minutes, the 49th percentile, and his ice went 45-48 against an expectation of 46.56-47.41.

Two goals of finishing below what the chances were worth and level at the other end. Ten power-play goals is the most on the club and 61 points is a career high.

The Finesse Game

245 attempts at a median of 27 feet with 30 per cent of them from inside twenty and 26 per cent from beyond forty, 158 of those on goal, converted at 13.9 per cent against a career 14.20 across 859 shots.

238 career assists against 122 goals in 506 games. He is a passer first and has been since Chicago; the puck goes across the seam rather than at the net, and a career 14.20 per cent says the shot works when he decides to use it.

The Physical Game

He is 6-0 and 184 and took 10 penalty minutes in 79 games.

112 career penalty minutes in 506 games. Ten minutes across a full season is one of the cleanest lines a nineteen-minute forward can post, and it comes from a man who does not engage physically at either end.

The Intangibles

Twentieth overall in 2014 by Chicago, eight seasons, and Utah is his third organisation.

A career minus-10 and 34 power-play goals in 506 games. He is 28, he has scored 58, 59 and 61 points in three of the last four seasons, and he has taken more than nineteen minutes a night doing it.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,166 minutes

Expected goals
49.5%
49th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
51.5%
68th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 45 for, 48 against. Expected: 46.6 and 47.4.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
84th
Numbers
49th

The report ranks him 35 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 — 77 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 with ARI · 1166 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
ARI took 48.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.5% — 0.6 above the club he did it on.
The role
Second line, 1,166 minutes at five-on-five — 80th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Clayton Keller50.5%44.9%45.6%
Sean Durzi48.1%50.6%53.1%
J.J. Moser52.2%48.2%49.3%

50.5% together, 44.9% for him apart and 45.6% for Keller apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.

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

245 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 23 of them goals. His median goal came from 22 feet. 30% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 26% from beyond forty.