Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

15

Noah Hanifin

Vegas Golden Knights Defense

Forty-seven points and 23:37 a night, and a career plus-minus of exactly minus-one.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2015-16CAR7941822-14221001223.317:54
2016-17CAR8142529-19262011083.717:55
2017-18CAR79102232-20211031656.118:52
2018-19CGY8052833+18121121164.320:46
2019-20CGY7051722-12121001323.821:10
2020-21CGY4741115-218001894.520:01
2021-22CGY81103848+27191011895.321:18
2022-23CGY8173138+2331001764.022:39
2023-24CGY/VGK80133447+19245021647.923:37
2024-25 so far
Career67862224286-11871311012614.920:29

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

80 games across Calgary and Vegas, 13 goals and 34 assists for 47 points, 5 on the power play, 24 penalty minutes, 23:37 a night and plus-19, with 2 game-winners. He took 51.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,497 minutes, the 66th percentile, and his ice went 72-57 against an expectation of 61.50-57.31.

Ten and a half goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and level at the other end. Seventy-two goals for in 1,497 minutes is the largest total on this club and 13 goals is a career high.

The Finesse Game

263 attempts at a median of 52 feet with 74 per cent of them from beyond forty and 10 per cent from inside twenty, 159 of those on goal, converted at 7.9 per cent against a career 4.92 across 1,261 shots.

224 career assists and 62 goals in 678 games. Two hundred and sixty-three attempts is the most of any defenceman on this club and the shot from the point is genuinely heavy; 13 goals at a 7.9 per cent rate against a career 4.92 is the part that will not repeat.

The Physical Game

He is 6-3 and 206 and took 24 penalty minutes.

187 career penalty minutes in 678 games. He is large and skates well enough not to need to be; the gap is closed with feet and the man is taken off the puck at the wall rather than in front of the net.

The Intangibles

Fifth overall in 2015 by Carolina, nine seasons, and Vegas will be his third organisation.

A career minus-1 in 678 games. He is 27, he took twenty-three and a half minutes a night last season, and 47 points is one short of his career high.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,497 minutes

Expected goals
51.8%
66th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
51.2%
65th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 72 for, 57 against. Expected: 61.5 and 57.3.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
95th
Numbers
66th

The report ranks him 29 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 — 81 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 CGY · 1150 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
VGK took 51.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.8% — 0.6 above the club he did it on.
The role
1,497 minutes at five-on-five — 97th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Chris Tanev53.9%49.7%57.7%
Blake Coleman51.1%52.0%52.3%
Mikael Backlund48.5%53.0%52.7%

53.9% together, 49.7% for him apart and 57.7% for Tanev apart. He was the one being carried: the share went with Tanev 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

263 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 13 of them goals. His median goal came from 23 feet. 10% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 74% from beyond forty.