This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Pontus Holmberg
Toronto Maple Leafs Right Wing
Thirteen points in thirty-seven rookie games, on the second-softest shot in this book.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-23 | TOR | 37 | 5 | 8 | 13 | 0 | 18 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 27 | 18.5 | 10:25 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 37 | 5 | 8 | 13 | 0 | 18 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 27 | 18.5 | 10:25 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 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
5 goals and 8 assists in 37 games — 13 points — at 10:25 a night, his first NHL season. Even, 27 shots at 18.5 per cent, one on the power play, two game-winners, 18 penalty minutes.
49.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five across 365 minutes, the 40th percentile, with his ice at 14-13 against an expectation of 12.79-13.16.
He started 54.9 per cent of his shifts in the attacking zone, the 72nd percentile: 78 attacking draws against 64 defensive ones. Sheltered, in ten minutes a night, which is the right way to start a rookie.
The Finesse Game
27 shots at a median of 23 feet.
Inside twenty feet: 11 shots on goal and three goals. From twenty to forty: 10 shots and two goals. Beyond forty: three shots and none. Twenty-four shots on goal is not a sample and this book will not pretend otherwise.
18.5 per cent on 27 shots is a rookie’s small number and nothing more.
41 tracked attempts, 22 of them wrist shots. His shot is measured at 80.6 mph, the 2nd percentile — the softest of any forward on this roster and one of the softest in the book.
That figure is durable in a way the shooting percentage is not: a maximum shot speed does not need many attempts to be honest about itself, and 80.6 says he will not beat an NHL goaltender from distance.
What he does instead is arrive at the right time and touch the puck once, which is what thirteen points in thirty-seven fourth-line games actually records.
The Physical Game
6-0 and 201 pounds, with 18 penalty minutes in 37 games.
Top speed 22.7 mph at the 72nd percentile and 1.2 bursts above twenty a game at the 63rd — a genuinely quick fourth-liner — on 1.71 miles a game, the 4th percentile, which is ten minutes of ice time and nothing else.
He is defensively responsible and was trusted in his own end from the first month, which for a sixth-round pick in his first season is the whole reason he stayed up.
He is not physical and the 18 penalty minutes are the ordinary fouls of a young forward learning where he is allowed to put his stick.
The Intangibles
A hundred and fifty-sixth overall in 2018, the sixth round, one season, 37 games, 13 points.
Five goals, eight assists and an even plus-minus.
He is twenty-four, a Swedish sixth-round pick, on a club with four established centres ahead of him.
A sixth-round pick who is a functional NHL fourth-liner at twenty-four is already a success, and the honest projection is a career of thirteenth-forward and injury-replacement work rather than anything more. The shot says so.
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
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.
“He is defensively responsible and was trusted in his own end from the first month, which for a sixth-round pick in his first season is the whole reason he stayed up.”
“What he does instead is arrive at the right time and touch the puck once, which is what thirteen points in thirty-seven fourth-line games actually records.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 365 minutes
- Expected goals
- 49.3%
- 46th pct
- Shot attempts
- 48.3%
- 40th 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: 14 for, 13 against. Expected: 12.8 and 13.2.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 8 points of one another. 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.
Both bars are percentiles among the 638 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 63 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, 2022-23 · 37 games
- Top speed
- 22.7 mph
- 77th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.19 a game
- Distance
- 1.71 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 80.6 mph
- 20th 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 84.9
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
2022-23 · 365 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, 2022-23
- The club
- TOR took 54.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.3% — 5.2 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- 365 minutes at five-on-five — 9th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zach Aston-Reese | 49.9% | 48.6% | 50.4% |
| Justin Holl | 48.2% | 50.1% | 53.7% |
| Mark Giordano | 47.9% | 49.9% | 57.6% |
49.9% together, 48.6% for him apart and 50.4% for Aston-Reese apart. Splitting them up moved neither man. Whatever is driving the share, it is not this pairing.
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
38 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 5 of them goals. His median goal came from 18 feet. 45% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 18% from beyond forty.