Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

90

Ryan O'Reilly

Nashville Predators Center

57 per cent of his shots from inside 20 feet at 34, 24 penalty minutes in 79 games, and the hardest defensive assignment on a club whose penalty kill finished 2nd in the league.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2009-10COL8181826+4180221355.916:46
2010-11COL74131326-71621011910.916:03
2011-12COL81183755-1124031899.519:32
2012-13COL2961420-34300669.118:30
2013-14COL80283664-1290620113.919:49
2014-15COL82173855-5122111719.919:43
2015-16BUF71213960-16881215713.421:44
2016-17BUF72203555-11081318910.621:28
2017-18BUF81243761-232150323010.420:49
2018-19STL82284977+221261523412.020:46
2019-20STL71124961+111021311810.220:34
2020-21STL56243054+261842412918.620:45
2021-22STL78213758+111290016812.519:05
2022-23STL/TOR53161430-211611410215.717:57
2023-24NSH82264369+618140118014.419:46
2024-25NSH79213253-232490315113.918:59
2025-26 so far
Career1152303521824-21194961140253911.919:33

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

79 games, 21 goals and 32 assists for 53 points at 18:59 a night, on 151 shots at 13.91 per cent. 24 penalty minutes, the lowest rate among the club’s top-six forwards. Minus-23.

A 49.1 per cent chance share is the best among the club’s veteran forwards, and the on-ice goals were 29-53 against an expected 42.32-43.86 — thirteen goals unscored and nine extra conceded. He was the most defensively responsible forward on the roster and he was on the ice for 53 five-on-five goals against, which is the whole season in one line.

The Finesse Game

57 per cent of his shots came from inside 20 feet at a median of 17 — by a distance the most interior profile on the club, and at 34 that is a decision rather than an accident. He does not have a shot that beats a goaltender from the circle any more and he has rebuilt the game accordingly: below the goal line, off the wall, into the paint.

The faceoff work is elite and always has been. The passing is patient and a half-step slower than it was. He reads a breakout before it develops, which is why he takes every important defensive-zone draw on the roster.

The Physical Game

207 pounds and strong on a puck below the goal line in a way that never depended on speed. He absorbs cross-checks in the crease and does not answer them.

24 penalty minutes in 79 games, at nineteen minutes a night, doing that job is remarkable discipline — and it is not an accident of one season, it is how he has always played.

The Intangibles

A Conn Smythe winner and a Selke winner, and the professional standard on a club that badly needed one.

He is 34, the skating is going, and every part of his game that was never about speed is entirely intact. Those parts happen to be the ones that matter most in April.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,053 minutes

Expected goals
49.1%
42nd pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
53.2%
84th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 29 for, 53 against. Expected: 42.3 and 43.9.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
58th
Numbers
42nd

The 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 357 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 74 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 · 1053 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
NSH took 49.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.1% — 0.1 below the club he did it on.
The role
Second line, 1,053 minutes at five-on-five — 68th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Filip Forsberg46.8%51.8%48.4%
Gustav Nyquist51.9%46.7%49.6%
Brady Skjei48.1%49.8%46.2%

46.8% together, 51.8% for him apart and 48.4% for Forsberg apart. He was better away from Forsberg, who was no worse away from him — the pairing cost him more than it cost Forsberg.

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

226 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 22 of them goals. His median goal came from 15 feet. 57% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 11% from beyond forty.