Reilly Smith

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

26 goals and 30 assists in 78 games — 56 points — at 16:58 a night for Vegas. Plus-11, 180 shots at 14.4 per cent, six on the power play, four shorthanded, four game-winners, 16 penalty minutes.

53 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five across 1,014 minutes, the 71st percentile, with his ice at 47-41 against an expectation of 46.40-41.07 — almost exactly what the chances called for, at both ends.

He started 53.2 per cent of his shifts in the attacking zone, the 65th percentile.

It is his best goal total since 27 in 2019-20 and the fourth time in six seasons he has finished above fifty points.

The Finesse Game

180 shots at a median of 25 feet, with 39 per cent of his attempts from inside twenty.

Inside twenty feet: 71 shots on goal and 19 goals — 26.76 per cent, against a league forward rate of 17.71. From twenty to forty: 84 shots and seven goals, 8.33 per cent against a league rate of 11.05. Beyond forty, two from 23.

Half again the rate from close range and below it from the mid-slot, on the largest share of his volume. That is a finisher whose value is concentrated in one band, and a 26.76 per cent rate on 71 shots is a small enough sample to regress hard.

His career shooting percentage is 12.3 and last season’s was 14.4. The four or five goals of froth in that difference are worth knowing about before anyone builds a line around it.

242 tracked attempts, 139 of them wrist shots, 28 backhands and only 20 slap. 85.0 mph at the 12th percentile — a genuinely soft shot, and it has not mattered in twelve seasons.

The Physical Game

6-1 and 185 pounds, with 16 penalty minutes in 78 games and 192 in 764 career games.

2.88 miles a game at the 73rd percentile, top speed 22.0 mph at the 35th, 0.9 bursts above twenty a game at the 50th. There is nothing in the tracking line that stands out in either direction.

The penalty kill is where the physical description actually lives. Four shorthanded goals last season and thirteen for a career is a very high number for a winger, and it comes from pressuring the puck at the blue line rather than from sitting in a box.

He is not a physical player and never has been. The defensive value is anticipation and stick position, which is why 185 pounds has not cost him anything in twelve seasons.

The Intangibles

Sixty-ninth overall in 2009, the third round, twelve seasons, 764 games, 473 points across four clubs.

A Stanley Cup with Vegas last June, 200 career goals, and a plus-124 that has more to do with the clubs he has played for than with him.

The pattern is consistency in a narrow band: no season above 60 points, none below 25 in a full year, and nine of the last ten between 37 and 60. A club that signs him knows within two points what it is buying.

He is thirty-two and moves onto a second line whose centre is thirty-six. The pieces around him have aged; he has not, particularly.