This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2024-25 report →
Rafael Harvey-Pinard
Montreal Canadiens Left Wing
Seventy-five per cent of his shots came from inside twenty feet — the most concentrated shot chart in this book.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-22 | MTL | 4 | 1 | 0 | 1 | -2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 16.7 | 13:05 |
| 2022-23 | MTL | 34 | 14 | 6 | 20 | +7 | 10 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 58 | 24.1 | 17:14 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 38 | 15 | 6 | 21 | +5 | 10 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 64 | 23.4 | 16:48 |
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
14 goals and 6 assists in 34 games — 20 points — with four on the power play, at 17:14 a night. Plus-7, 58 shots at 24.1 per cent, 10 penalty minutes.
Fourteen goals on fifty-eight shots. That rate does not survive contact with a full season and this book says so before it says anything else.
47.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 35th percentile, with his ice at 27-23 against an expectation of 18.10-19.95 across 459 minutes. Nine goals more at the offensive end than the chances deserved, and he scored most of them.
Two seasons, 38 games, 21 points.
The Finesse Game
58 shots at a median of 13 feet, 75 per cent from inside twenty and 4 per cent from beyond forty. That is the most concentrated close-range shot distribution recorded anywhere in this edition.
He took two shots on goal from beyond forty feet all season. Inside forty: 53 shots and 14 goals — 26.42 per cent.
Every goal came from inside forty feet, and the median shot was thirteen feet from the net.
11 backhands, 26 tip-ins and 10 snap shots out of 78 tracked attempts. Twenty of his fifty-five shots were taken with the puck already at the crease.
90.9 mph at the 50th percentile, and it is entirely beside the point at thirteen feet.
The Physical Game
5-9 and 179, and ten penalty minutes in thirty-four games.
Top speed 21.9 mph, the 31st percentile; bursts 0.9 a game, the 47th; 2.64 miles a game, the 57th. Nothing in the tracking is above average.
What he does is go to the front of the net at 179 pounds and stay there, which is how a shot chart looks like this. It is also the most punishing way for a small forward to make a living and the reason the projection has to be cautious.
51.0 per cent of his five-on-five shifts started in the attacking zone, the 51st percentile.
The Intangibles
Two hundred and first overall in 2019, out of the Quebec league, and 34 NHL games at twenty-four.
A seventh-round pick who scores fourteen goals in his first thirty-four games is one of the better stories in this edition and one of the least likely to repeat. The 26.42 per cent is the number to distrust; the median of thirteen feet is the number to believe.
If the shot chart holds and the rate falls to fourteen per cent, that is still a fifteen-goal season from a seventh-round pick. That is the honest projection.
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
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.
- slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
81.6% of his attempts in the slot, 100th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
“What he does is go to the front of the net at 179 pounds and stay there, which is how a shot chart looks like this.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 459 minutes
- Expected goals
- 47.6%
- 35th pct
- Shot attempts
- 44.7%
- 16th 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, 23 against. Expected: 18.1 and 19.9.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe 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 638 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 70 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 · 34 games
- Top speed
- 21.9 mph
- 40th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.85 a game
- Distance
- 2.64 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 90.9 mph
- 72nd 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 · 459 minutes at five-on-five
- Nick Suzuki67%
- Jesse Ylonen22%
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
- MTL took 44.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.6% — 3.6 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- 459 minutes at five-on-five — 13th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nick Suzuki | 49.1% | 43.2% | 41.5% |
| Mike Matheson | 50.4% | 45.3% | 43.3% |
| David Savard | 45.8% | 48.8% | 42.9% |
49.1% together, 43.2% for him apart and 41.5% for Suzuki 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
76 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 14 of them goals. His median goal came from 12 feet. 75% of his shots came from inside twenty feet.