This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Ryan Donato
Chicago Blackhawks Center
Forty-five per cent of his shots from inside twenty feet, and thirty points on a club that scored 179.
| 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 | CHI | 78 | 12 | 18 | 30 | -14 | 26 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 149 | 8.1 | 14:00 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 403 | 77 | 88 | 165 | -30 | 142 | 9 | 0 | 5 | 792 | 9.7 | 12:46 |
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
Seventy-eight games, 12 goals and 18 assists, 1 on the power play, 14:00 a night and minus-14. He took 42.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 946 minutes, the 8th percentile, and his ice went 29-45 against an expectation of 34.00-46.30.
Thirty points at fourteen minutes a night on the club that scored fewest in the league is honest work. He converted 8.05 per cent of 149 shots against a career 9.72.
The Finesse Game
He takes 45 per cent of his attempts from inside 20 feet at a median of 22, which is a genuine scoring profile — he goes to the net and shoots from there rather than settling for the perimeter.
One hundred and forty-nine shots at 14:00 a night is a high volume for the ice time. Seventy-seven goals and 88 assists in 403 games is the record of a shooter who has never had a line to shoot from.
The Physical Game
He is 6-0 and 190 and goes into the traffic in front of the net without being a physical player anywhere else. Twenty-six penalty minutes in 78 games is an ordinary rate.
He does not win the wall and he does not kill penalties. The value is entirely in the offensive zone.
The Intangibles
A second-round pick in 2014, son of a Boston Bruin, who has now played for six clubs in seven seasons and settled into a middle-six role that fits. Thirty points is his best return since Seattle.
On a club with 179 goals, a man who will shoot from inside twenty feet is worth keeping.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 946 minutes
- Expected goals
- 42.3%
- 8th pct
- Shot attempts
- 44.3%
- 13th 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: 29 for, 45 against. Expected: 34.0 and 46.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 3 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 201 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 54 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 · 946 minutes at five-on-five
- MacKenzie Entwistleoff the roster31%
- Reese Johnsonnow MIN18%
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
- CHI took 41.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 42.3% — 0.4 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Fourth line, 946 minutes at five-on-five — 52nd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| MacKenzie Entwistle | 39.4% | 44.0% | 43.1% |
| Kevin Korchinski | 43.7% | 41.7% | 39.9% |
| Alex Vlasic | 44.8% | 41.3% | 44.2% |
39.4% together, 44.0% for him apart and 43.1% for Entwistle apart. Both were better apart than together — the pairing was doing neither of them any favours.
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
193 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 12 of them goals. His median goal came from 12 feet. 45% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 19% from beyond forty.