This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Paul Cotter
New Jersey Devils Left Wing
16 goals on a 17.8 per cent rate, 62 penalty minutes, and a minus-14 from a fourth line.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-22 | VGK | 7 | 2 | 0 | 2 | +1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 18.2 | 8:49 |
| 2022-23 | VGK | 55 | 13 | 5 | 18 | -5 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 76 | 17.1 | 12:50 |
| 2023-24 | VGK | 76 | 7 | 18 | 25 | -11 | 41 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 100 | 7.0 | 12:44 |
| 2024-25 | NJD | 79 | 16 | 6 | 22 | -14 | 62 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 90 | 17.8 | 13:05 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 217 | 38 | 29 | 67 | -29 | 124 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 277 | 13.7 | 12:46 |
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
16 goals and 6 assists in 79 games for 22 points, minus-14, on 13:05 a night with 62 penalty minutes.
48.0 per cent at five-on-five, the 34th percentile. 17.8 per cent shooting on 90 attempts is a very high rate on a small volume, and 6 assists in 79 games is among the lowest playmaking totals in this edition.
The Finesse Game
The finishing was a surprise and it is not a skill. 90 shots and 16 goals is a rate no fourth-line forward sustains, and there is no evidence in his record of a shooter — his previous career high was 13 goals.
6 assists says everything about the rest. He does not make plays for other people at all.
The Physical Game
6-2 and 213, and he plays a genuinely violent forechecking game. He hits everything, he is willing to fight, and he is among the harder fourth-line wingers in the league to play against.
62 penalty minutes over 79 games is a high rate for thirteen minutes a night, and on a club with the 3rd-best penalty kill it is a cost the unit can absorb.
The Intangibles
A fourth-round pick, two organisations, and an NHL job built on being difficult.
At 26 the projection is 8 goals and 60 penalty minutes. The 16 goals were borrowed and the club should plan on it.
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.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- 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.
- durable· was available
79 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“6-2 and 213, and he plays a genuinely violent forechecking game.”
“He hits everything, he is willing to fight, and he is among the harder fourth-line wingers in the league to play against.”
“He hits everything”
“6 assists says everything about the rest. He does not make plays for other people at all.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 942 minutes
- Expected goals
- 48%
- 35th pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.4%
- 46th 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: 27 for, 40 against. Expected: 31.8 and 34.5.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 20 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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 73 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, 2024-25 · 79 games
- Top speed
- 23.4 mph
- 96th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 2.20 a game
- Distance
- 2.17 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 84.9 mph
- 43rd pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.2
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 83.9
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
2024-25 · 942 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
- NJD took 50.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 48.0% — 2.7 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third line, 942 minutes at five-on-five — 52nd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Erik Haula | 44.2% | 50.9% | 50.2% |
| Brenden Dillon | 42.8% | 50.6% | 51.7% |
| Luke Hughes | 48.5% | 47.7% | 51.8% |
44.2% together, 50.9% for him apart and 50.2% for Haula 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
149 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 19 of them goals. His median goal came from 11 feet. 43% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 13% from beyond forty.