Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

38

Rasmus Sandin

Washington Capitals Defense

Seventy career assists and no power-play goals at all.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2019-20TOR28178-710001224.514:19
2020-21TOR9044+6000090.014:40
2021-22TOR5151116+940034610.916:58
2022-23TOR/WSH7172835+339000818.619:19
2023-24WSH6832023-1324001793.821:07
2024-25 so far
Career227167086-2770052376.818:32

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

68 games, 3 goals and 20 assists for 23 points, 24 penalty minutes, 21:07 a night and minus-13, with 1 game-winner. He took 46.5 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,290 minutes, the 29th percentile, and his ice went 46-58 against an expectation of 49.69-57.17.

Four goals of finishing below what the chances were worth and level at the other end. Forty-six point five per cent of the chances at twenty-one minutes a night is the lowest share of any defenceman on this club.

The Finesse Game

109 attempts at a median of 47 feet with 61 per cent of them from beyond forty and 11 per cent from inside twenty, 77 of those on goal, converted at 3.8 per cent against a career 6.75 across 237 shots.

Seventy career assists against 16 goals in 227 games and no power-play goals at all. He moves the puck quickly and joins the rush, and the passing is genuinely good; 109 attempts in 68 games at twenty-one minutes a night is a very small number for a defenceman who is supposed to be the offensive one.

The Physical Game

He is 5-11 and 189 and took 24 penalty minutes.

Seventy-seven career penalty minutes in 227 games. He is small and does not defend by contact at all; the gap is closed with feet and the stick does the rest, and there is no crease-clearing in his game at any point.

The Intangibles

Twenty-ninth overall in 2018 by Toronto, five seasons, and Washington is his second organisation.

A career minus-2 in 227 games. He was a first-round pick, he is 24, and he has had 28 and 20 assists in the last two seasons.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,290 minutes

Expected goals
46.5%
29th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
46%
22nd pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 46 for, 58 against. Expected: 49.7 and 57.2.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
72nd
Numbers
29th

The report ranks him 43 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 — 74 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 · 1290 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
WSH took 47.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 46.5% — 0.7 below the club he did it on.
The role
Second pair, 1,290 minutes at five-on-five — 89th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Alex Ovechkin48.4%45.4%45.1%
John Carlson47.6%45.9%47.7%
Dylan Strome51.1%44.4%55.8%

48.4% together, 45.4% for him apart and 45.1% for Ovechkin 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

109 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 3 of them goals. His median goal came from 39 feet. 11% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 61% from beyond forty.