This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Sam Malinski
Colorado Avalanche Defense
Undrafted out of Cornell, 76 games on the third pair, and an even chance share doing it.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-24 | COL | 23 | 3 | 7 | 10 | +3 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 31 | 9.7 | 14:14 |
| 2024-25 | COL | 76 | 5 | 10 | 15 | +8 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 115 | 4.3 | 15:57 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 99 | 8 | 17 | 25 | +11 | 22 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 146 | 5.5 | 15:33 |
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
5 goals and 10 assists in 76 games for 15 points, plus-8, on 15:57 a night.
Exactly 50 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 53rd percentile, over 1,089 minutes. His on-ice goals were 47-38 against an expected 41-42, so the results ran ahead of the play — a third pair that got good goaltending and better luck.
The Finesse Game
He starts plays rather than finishing them. The skating is good enough to retrieve under pressure and the first pass is quick, and unlike most defencemen that willing to move the puck early he does not give it away doing it.
115 shots with 79 per cent of them from beyond 40 feet is the profile of a man whose offence is entirely getting pucks to the net from the line. There is no rush game and no deception in it, which is why 15 points is probably close to the ceiling.
The Physical Game
5-11 and 190, and neither heavy nor soft. He takes contact to make a play and does not initiate it, and 16 penalty minutes across 76 games is a player who is rarely late and rarely angry.
He does not defend the net front and should not be asked to, which on this blue line is a problem — three of the top six cannot.
The Intangibles
Undrafted, four years at Cornell, and an NHL regular at 27, which is a career almost nobody has. Nothing about the way he plays suggests he thinks the job is safe.
The honest projection is a third-pair defenceman on a good team, which is exactly what Colorado needs him to be. The risk is that last season’s results flattered him by 8 goals and the shot share underneath was ordinary.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,089 minutes
- Expected goals
- 50%
- 53rd pct
- Shot attempts
- 52.4%
- 77th 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: 47 for, 38 against. Expected: 41.4 and 41.5.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe numbers rank him 33 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 156 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 68 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 · 1089 minutes at five-on-five
- Calvin de Haanoff the roster22%
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
- COL took 53.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.0% — 3.2 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 1,089 minutes at five-on-five — 74th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Logan O'Connor | 57.4% | 47.4% | 51.3% |
| Samuel Girard | 53.8% | 48.4% | 53.4% |
| Casey Mittelstadt | 46.6% | 51.2% | 45.9% |
57.4% together, 47.4% for him apart and 51.3% for O'Connor 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
155 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 5 of them goals. His median goal came from 38 feet. 5% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 79% from beyond forty.