This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Robert Thomas
St. Louis Blues Center
Twenty-six goals and 60 assists at 25, on a club that took the thirtieth-largest share of the chances in hockey.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | STL | 70 | 9 | 24 | 33 | -2 | 14 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 80 | 11.3 | 13:04 |
| 2019-20 | STL | 66 | 10 | 32 | 42 | +9 | 18 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 87 | 11.5 | 14:34 |
| 2020-21 | STL | 33 | 3 | 9 | 12 | +1 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 22 | 13.6 | 13:36 |
| 2021-22 | STL | 72 | 20 | 57 | 77 | +17 | 16 | 3 | 2 | 6 | 115 | 17.4 | 18:46 |
| 2022-23 | STL | 73 | 18 | 47 | 65 | -8 | 22 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 106 | 17.0 | 19:21 |
| 2023-24 | STL | 82 | 26 | 60 | 86 | +9 | 48 | 8 | 1 | 3 | 170 | 15.3 | 20:58 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 396 | 86 | 229 | 315 | +26 | 128 | 20 | 4 | 14 | 580 | 14.8 | 17:11 |
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
82 games, 26 goals and 60 assists for 86 points, 8 on the power play, 1 shorthanded, 48 penalty minutes, 20:58 a night and plus-9, with 3 game-winners. He took 49.5 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,211 minutes, the 49th percentile, and his ice went 60-43 against an expectation of 56.81-57.98.
Three goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and fifteen goals of goaltending above them — the largest such figure on the club, marginally ahead of Nick Leddy. Eighty-six points is a career high by nine.
The Finesse Game
242 attempts at a median of 27 feet with 39 per cent of them from inside twenty, 171 of those on goal, converted at 15.3 per cent against a career 14.83 across 580 shots.
229 career assists against 86 goals in 396 games. He holds the puck below the goal line longer than anybody on this club and waits for the second man rather than the first, which is why sixty assists came out of a club that took 45 per cent of the attempts.
The Physical Game
He is 6-0 and 207 and took 48 penalty minutes.
128 career penalty minutes in 396 games. He is not a physical centre in either direction, but he is strong enough on his stick to hold a puck against pressure in the corner, and almost everything he creates starts from that.
The Intangibles
Twentieth overall in 2017 by St. Louis, six seasons, one organisation, and 315 points in 396 games.
A career plus-26 on clubs that have mostly been outchanced. He is 25, he has had two seventy-point seasons and one of eighty-six, and he is the reason this club is not rebuilding.
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.
- durable· was available
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
49.5% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 42.4% for his club in the minutes he sat: +7.1, 94th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
- workhorse· carries the load at even strength
14:46 a game at five-on-five, 91st percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
“He holds the puck below the goal line longer than anybody on this club and waits for the second man rather than the first, which is why sixty assists came out of a club that took 45 per cent of the attempts.”
“He is not a physical centre in either direction, but he is strong enough on his stick to hold a puck against pressure in the corner, and almost everything he creates starts from that.”
“He is 25, he has had two seventy-point seasons and one of eighty-six, and he is the reason this club is not rebuilding.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,211 minutes
- Expected goals
- 49.5%
- 49th pct
- Shot attempts
- 49.4%
- 50th 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: 60 for, 43 against. Expected: 56.8 and 58.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 41 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 — 79 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, 2023-24 · 82 games
- Top speed
- 22.2 mph
- 51st pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 0.89 a game
- Distance
- 3.34 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 87.8 mph
- 56th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.1
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 84.5
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
2023-24 · 1211 minutes at five-on-five
- Jordan Kyrou58%
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
- STL took 44.8% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.5% — 4.7 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First line, 1,211 minutes at five-on-five — 83rd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pavel Buchnevich | 51.6% | 44.9% | 44.2% |
| Jordan Kyrou | 50.9% | 47.6% | 50.6% |
| Colton Parayko | 46.1% | 52.5% | 43.3% |
51.6% together, 44.9% for him apart and 44.2% for Buchnevich 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
242 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 27 of them goals. His median goal came from 22 feet. 39% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 17% from beyond forty.