Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

25

Ryan Poehling

Philadelphia Flyers Center

Half his attempts from inside twenty feet, and nine goals of finishing that never arrived.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2018-19MTL1303+300003100.011:22
2019-20MTL27112-44000263.910:20
2021-22MTL579817-216201919.912:12
2022-23PIT537714-280206410.911:46
2023-24PHI77111728-1161311119.915:00
2024-25 so far
Career215313364-352435229510.512:51

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

77 games, 11 goals and 17 assists for 28 points, 1 on the power play, 3 shorthanded, 6 penalty minutes, 15:00 a night and minus-11, with 1 game-winner. He took 54.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 958 minutes, the 86th percentile, and his ice went 32-42 against an expectation of 41.31-34.10.

Nine goals of finishing below what the chances were worth — the largest shortfall among the club’s forwards — and eight more conceded than they called for. Twenty-eight points is a career high and it should have been more.

The Finesse Game

151 attempts at a median of 20 feet with 50 per cent of them from inside twenty and 16 per cent from beyond forty, 111 of those on goal, converted at 9.9 per cent against a career 10.51 across 295 shots.

Half of his attempts from inside twenty feet is one of the closest shot charts on the roster. He arrives at the net and takes what comes off the goaltender; 33 career assists in 215 games says the passing is a secondary thing. Three goals in his first NHL game remains the oddest line on the page.

The Physical Game

He is 6-2 and 206 and took 6 penalty minutes in 77 games.

24 career penalty minutes in 215 games is one of the lowest rates in the league. He is a large centre who goes to the front of the net and wins his share below the goal line without ever crossing into anything that gets called.

The Intangibles

Twenty-fifth overall in 2017 by Montreal, five seasons, three organisations, 64 points in 215 games and a career minus-35.

Five career shorthanded goals in 215 games and three of them last season, on the fourth-best penalty kill in hockey. He is 25 and this was the first season anybody played him fifteen minutes a night.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 958 minutes

Expected goals
54.8%
86th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
50.5%
59th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 32 for, 42 against. Expected: 41.3 and 34.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
46th
Numbers
86th

The numbers rank him 40 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 437 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 65 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 · 958 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, 2023-24

The club
PHI took 52.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 54.8% — 2.2 above the club he did it on.
The role
Fourth line, 958 minutes at five-on-five — 53rd percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Garnet Hathaway60.7%49.3%48.2%
Travis Sanheim55.8%54.1%51.6%
Cam York58.9%52.6%50.5%

60.7% together, 49.3% for him apart and 48.2% for Hathaway 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

151 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 11 of them goals. His median goal came from 17 feet. 52% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 16% from beyond forty.