This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Ryan Donato
Chicago Blackhawks Center
Plus-16 in Seattle on an ice that beat its expectation by ten, and the 9th percentile in distance covered.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-18 | BOS | 12 | 5 | 4 | 9 | +2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 24 | 20.8 | 14:42 |
| 2018-19 | BOS/MIN | 56 | 10 | 15 | 25 | -15 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 139 | 7.2 | 13:42 |
| 2019-20 | MIN | 62 | 14 | 9 | 23 | +5 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 95 | 14.7 | 10:38 |
| 2020-21 | SJS | 50 | 6 | 14 | 20 | -11 | 10 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 104 | 5.8 | 12:36 |
| 2021-22 | SEA | 74 | 16 | 15 | 31 | -13 | 40 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 159 | 10.1 | 13:48 |
| 2022-23 | SEA | 71 | 14 | 13 | 27 | +16 | 46 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 122 | 11.5 | 11:15 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 325 | 65 | 70 | 135 | -16 | 116 | 8 | 0 | 5 | 643 | 10.1 | 12:28 |
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
14 goals and 13 assists in 71 games for Seattle — 27 points at 11:15 a night, plus-16, with 46 penalty minutes on 122 shots at 11.48 per cent.
51.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 761 minutes, the 63rd percentile. His ice went 42-24 against an expectation of 31.58-29.57 — ten goals better than forecast at the offensive end and five and a half better at the defensive one.
A plus-16 built on an eleven-minute fourth-line shift beating its expected goals by sixteen combined is the kind of number that does not travel, and the honest thing is to say so before Chicago’s readers get attached to it.
The Finesse Game
122 attempts at a median of 22 feet, 46 per cent from inside twenty and 17 per cent from beyond forty. Ten goals on 52 shots from inside twenty at 19.2 per cent, three from the middle band, one on 21 from beyond forty.
His shot is 94.4 mph at the 75th percentile, which is genuinely hard for a bottom-six forward, and 65 goals in 325 career games at 10.11 per cent is a fair record.
The shot selection is good. What has never arrived is the volume — 122 attempts across 71 games is under two a night.
The Physical Game
6-0 and 190 with 46 penalty minutes, and 1.84 miles a game at the 9th percentile, which is very little ground for a forward who is not a net-front specialist.
22.9 mph at the 83rd percentile says the top gear is there and 0.9 bursts a game at the 47th says he rarely uses it. That combination — quick but stationary — describes a player waiting for the puck rather than hunting it.
The Intangibles
A second-round pick by Boston in 2014, Harvard, the son of a Bruin, and five organisations by 27.
He has been given a look by everyone and kept by nobody, and 325 games without a settled role is its own kind of verdict. Chicago is the fifth club to try him at eleven minutes a night.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 761 minutes
- Expected goals
- 51.6%
- 64th pct
- Shot attempts
- 52%
- 71st 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: 42 for, 24 against. Expected: 31.6 and 29.6.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 34 points above where the report does. 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 141 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 58 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
2022-23 with SEA · 761 minutes at five-on-five
- Daniel Sprongnow DET34%
- Brandon Tanev29%
- Yanni Gourde27%
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, 2022-23
- The club
- SEA took 52.3% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.6% — 0.7 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Fourth line, 761 minutes at five-on-five — 36th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adam Larsson | 55.8% | 48.6% | 53.5% |
| Vince Dunn | 53.4% | 50.6% | 55.1% |
| Daniel Sprong | 54.3% | 50.4% | 56.8% |
55.8% together, 48.6% for him apart and 53.5% for Larsson apart. He was worse away from Larsson, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Larsson 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
149 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 14 of them goals. His median goal came from 11 feet. 46% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 17% from beyond forty.