Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2025-26 report →

19

Reilly Smith

New York Rangers Right Wing

Eight hundred and forty games, a career plus-127, and thirteen career shorthanded goals.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2011-12DAL3000-3200020.08:24
2012-13DAL3736908000348.810:55
2013-14BOS82203151+281460314613.714:42
2014-15BOS81132740+7201001439.115:24
2015-16FLA82252550+193150317314.418:37
2016-17FLA80152237-13176131609.418:21
2017-18VGK67223860+312471416213.617:55
2018-19VGK74193453+131441117810.718:16
2019-20VGK71272754+172032616916.017:55
2020-21VGK53141125+101842112411.317:52
2021-22VGK56162238+4832315010.717:47
2022-23VGK78263056+111664418014.416:58
2023-24PIT76132740+3181031528.616:08
2024-25 so far
Career840213300513+127210461331177312.016:54

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

76 games in Pittsburgh, 13 goals and 27 assists for 40 points, 1 on the power play, 18 penalty minutes, 16:08 a night and plus-3. He took 52.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,027 minutes, the 72nd percentile, and his ice went 42-37 against an expectation of 44.49-40.05, all of it with the Penguins.

Two goals of scoring that did not arrive and three fewer conceded than the chances called for. Forty points at 32 on a club that finished outside the playoffs is a fair season.

The Finesse Game

152 shots at a median of 22 feet with 48 per cent from inside 20, converted at 8.6 per cent against a career 12.01.

300 career assists in 840 games. Thirteen goals on a hundred and fifty-two shots is five below his own rate and the assists are where the value is. He reads a play early and moves the puck before the pressure arrives.

The Physical Game

He is 6-1 and 185 and does not defend with contact.

210 career penalty minutes in 840 games is a very low rate. He forechecks by anticipation, kills penalties, and has 13 career shorthanded goals in 840 games.

The Intangibles

A third-round pick in 2009 by Dallas, out of Mimico, thirteen seasons across five organisations, and 513 points in 840 games at a career plus-127. He won the Stanley Cup in Vegas.

He is 33 and a career plus-127 is a very large number for a forward who has never been a first-line player. New York has bought a third-line winger who kills penalties and has won.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,027 minutes

Expected goals
52.6%
72nd pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
51.4%
67th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 42 for, 37 against. Expected: 44.5 and 40.0.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
80th
Numbers
72nd

The 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 415 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 72 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 with PIT · 1027 minutes at five-on-five

  • Evgeni Malkin58%
  • Valtteri Puustinen30%
  • Lars Eller28%

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
PIT took 51.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 52.6% — 1.5 above the club he did it on.
The role
First line, 1,027 minutes at five-on-five — 62nd percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Evgeni Malkin54.2%49.9%52.3%
Erik Karlsson54.7%50.9%53.7%
Marcus Pettersson54.6%51.6%53.1%

54.2% together, 49.9% for him apart and 52.3% for Malkin apart. He was worse away from Malkin, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Malkin did.

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

210 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 13 of them goals. His median goal came from 22 feet. 48% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 16% from beyond forty.