This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Ryan McLeod
Buffalo Sabres Center
Fifty-six point six per cent of the expected goals in Edmonton — the ninety-third percentile, and the best number on this roster by a distance.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | EDM | 10 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0.0 | 12:47 |
| 2021-22 | EDM | 71 | 9 | 12 | 21 | -2 | 12 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 82 | 11.0 | 12:46 |
| 2022-23 | EDM | 57 | 11 | 12 | 23 | +4 | 18 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 78 | 14.1 | 14:11 |
| 2023-24 | EDM | 81 | 12 | 18 | 30 | +10 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 106 | 11.3 | 14:15 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 219 | 32 | 43 | 75 | +10 | 40 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 269 | 11.9 | 13:41 |
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
12 goals and 18 assists in 81 games for Edmonton — 30 points at 14:15 a night, plus-10, with 3 game-winners on 106 shots at 11.32 per cent, and 10 penalty minutes.
56.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,003 minutes, the 93rd percentile — the best mark of any player on this roster by a distance. His ice went 39-30 against an expectation of 49.35-37.78.
Ten penalty minutes in eighty-one games is one of the lowest rates in this edition.
The Finesse Game
106 attempts at a median of 21 feet, with 47 per cent from inside 20 and 11 per cent from beyond 40, converting at 11.32 per cent. He shoots from the middle of the ice and he does not waste attempts from the boards.
The skating is the top end of this roster — he is one of the fastest men in the league in a straight line at 6-3, and he closes on a puck carrier from further away than anyone expects.
18 assists. He is not a creator; what he is is a centre who takes the puck out of his own end at speed and forces a defence to retreat.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 204. He forechecks with speed rather than with force and he does not punish anybody, and he will not win a battle on the wall against a heavy defenceman.
10 penalty minutes in 81 games and 40 in 219 for his career. He does not retaliate, he does not take liberties, and there is almost nothing unnecessary in the season.
The Intangibles
Fortieth overall in 2018 by Edmonton, and 219 games and 75 points at 25, most of it as a third-line centre behind two of the best players alive.
He was traded here in the summer for Matthew Savoie. The 91st percentile of chances is a real number and it was produced in Edmonton, which is the caveat; the club has bought a first-round forward’s worth of a third-line centre and will now find out how much of it was the ice he was on.
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
- he lacks itraised, and he does not have it
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.
- disciplined· stays out of the box
0.12 penalty minutes a game over 81, 5th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.75) · 35% keep it
- durable· was available
81 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“**The skating is the top end of this roster** — he is one of the fastest men in the league in a straight line at 6-3, and he closes on a puck carrier from further away than anyone expects.”
“106 attempts at a median of 21 feet, with **47 per cent from inside 20** and 11 per cent from beyond 40, converting at 11.32 per cent. He shoots from the middle of the ice and he does not waste attempts from the boards.”
“18 assists. He is not a creator; what he is is a centre who takes the puck out of his own end at speed and forces a defence to retreat.”
“He forechecks with speed rather than with force and he does not punish anybody, and he will not win a battle on the wall against a heavy defenceman.”
“He forechecks with speed rather than with force and he does not punish anybody, and he will not win a battle on the wall against a heavy defenceman.”
“He does not retaliate, he does not take liberties, and there is almost nothing unnecessary in the season.”
“He does not retaliate, he does not take liberties, and there is almost nothing unnecessary in the season.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,003 minutes
- Expected goals
- 56.6%
- 93rd pct
- Shot attempts
- 56.8%
- 94th 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: 39 for, 30 against. Expected: 49.4 and 37.8.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 42 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 70 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 · 81 games
- Top speed
- 23.8 mph
- 99th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 4.60 a game
- Distance
- 2.59 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 86.6 mph
- 49th 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 with EDM · 1003 minutes at five-on-five
- Corey Perry22%
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
- EDM took 56.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 56.6% — 0.3 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second line, 1,003 minutes at five-on-five — 58th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Warren Foegele | 60.4% | 52.4% | 57.4% |
| Darnell Nurse | 56.9% | 56.5% | 52.5% |
| Cody Ceci | 55.5% | 57.5% | 50.5% |
60.4% together, 52.4% for him apart and 57.4% for Foegele 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
154 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 11 of them goals. His median goal came from 12 feet. 47% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 11% from beyond forty.