This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Ross Colton
Colorado Avalanche Center
16 goals in 61 games from 22 feet out, and a 54.8 per cent chance share on the third line.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | TBL | 30 | 9 | 3 | 12 | +3 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 46 | 19.6 | 10:34 |
| 2021-22 | TBL | 79 | 22 | 17 | 39 | +4 | 24 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 159 | 13.8 | 12:48 |
| 2022-23 | TBL | 81 | 16 | 16 | 32 | -8 | 50 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 153 | 10.5 | 12:21 |
| 2023-24 | COL | 80 | 17 | 23 | 40 | -8 | 61 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 146 | 11.6 | 13:43 |
| 2024-25 | COL | 61 | 16 | 13 | 29 | -1 | 18 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 125 | 12.8 | 14:25 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 331 | 80 | 72 | 152 | -10 | 169 | 13 | 0 | 16 | 629 | 12.7 | 13:00 |
This Season So Far
The 2025-26 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
16 goals and 13 assists in 61 games for 29 points, minus-1, on 14:25 a night, with 5 on the power play.
54.8 per cent at five-on-five, the 89th percentile, and on-ice goals of 40-26 against an expected 34-28 — the best goal differential per minute on the club. 125 shots from a median of 22 feet with 45 per cent inside 20.
The Finesse Game
A shooter who has organised his entire game around getting to the places shooters score from. Nearly half his attempts come from inside 20 feet, and at 12.8 per cent he converts them at a rate that has been stable for four seasons.
He is not a playmaker — 13 assists in 61 games — and he does not carry a line. What he does is arrive, and the difference between him and the players below him on the depth chart is that he arrives at the net rather than near it.
The Physical Game
6 feet and 194, and he plays a hard, straight, forechecking game that is exactly suited to a third line. He finishes checks, he is willing on the wall, and he takes the punishment that comes with living at the net front.
18 penalty minutes in 61 games is disciplined for the style. The games missed are the concern — he has now had two seasons in a row cut short.
The Intangibles
He scored a Cup-winning goal at 25 and has never played as though it settled anything. Coaches use him on the kill, in the last minute, and against real lines.
At 29 he is at his ceiling and it is a useful one: a 20-goal third-line centre who defends. The contract runs long enough that the last years of it will be paying for a version of this player who no longer gets to those spots.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 768 minutes
- Expected goals
- 54.8%
- 90th pct
- Shot attempts
- 53.7%
- 87th 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: 40 for, 26 against. Expected: 33.8 and 27.9.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 16 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 237 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 77 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
2024-25 · 768 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, 2024-25
- The club
- COL took 53.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 54.8% — 1.6 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third line, 768 minutes at five-on-five — 34th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Samuel Girard | 61.9% | 50.0% | 50.7% |
| Sam Malinski | 44.9% | 59.5% | 51.6% |
| Casey Mittelstadt | 45.5% | 59.0% | 46.2% |
61.9% together, 50.0% for him apart and 50.7% for Girard 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
196 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 15 of them goals. His median goal came from 17 feet. 45% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 11% from beyond forty.