Armchair Hockey Scout

Ask the book

2026-27 edition Ask a direct question about this edition of the book — who, how many, how common, which group more — and it is answered with a table computed on this page from the edition’s index: the season line, height and age, the on-ice percentiles, the grades and the traits read out of every report. Ask for a view on named players — what a comparison comes down to, what makes a man — and you get the book’s reading of their own pages, and only those. The model turns your question into a query and phrases the result, or reads the pages it is handed; it never originates a figure, and an answer carrying a figure that is on neither the table nor the pages is withheld. It does not forecast, and it says so when a question is outside what the book holds.

Tables are computed on this page from the 2026-27 edition’s index; readings rest on the players’ own pages; the model never counts. Twenty questions an hour.

18

Sam Steel

Dallas Stars Center

491 games of being the fourth-line centre a good team needs.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2018-19ANA226511+280103318.214:58
2019-20ANA6561622-1320101857.115:33
2020-21ANA426612-780004214.314:32
2021-22ANA6861420-1716001669.112:19
2022-23MIN65101828+11180128511.814:58
2023-24DAL77915240290218610.513:15
2024-25DAL7961925-631011896.714:08
2025-26DAL73122133+3241058214.616:04
2026-27 so far—————————————
Career—49161114175-27154251156810.714:24

This Season So Far

The 2026-27 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 21 assists in 73 games — 33 points, plus-3, at 16:04 a night.

The Finesse Game

Better than the role suggests and never quite enough for a bigger one. 47 per cent of his unblocked attempts came from inside 20 feet, median 20, and 12 went in from 118 tries.

He shoots from the right places, which on this roster is close to universal and clearly taught. 21 assists is a fair return from a third line.

175 points in 491 games is the career.

The Physical Game

6 foot even, 185, and light. 24 penalty minutes. He is not winning wall battles and does not try; the game is played in space and on anticipation.

The Intangibles

49.4 per cent of the expected goals, 49th percentile — dead average, which for a third-line centre on a club that finished 7th in expected goals against is exactly the job description.

The shot-attempt share of 46.2 per cent, 19th percentile, is the Dallas pattern again: concede the volume, keep the danger even.

9 points in his last 10, 4 of them goals. He is 28, a 30th overall pick who never became a top-6 forward, and he is now genuinely useful. That is a fine outcome.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2025-26 · 973 minutes

Expected goals
49.4%
49th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
46.3%
21st pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 37 for, 32 against. Expected: 36.1 and 37.0.

The eye and the numbers

Sighted
Report
27th
Numbers
49th

The numbers rank him 22 points above where the report does. It was written with these numbers on screen and departs from them anyway, which makes the gap a judgment rather than an oversight. 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 656 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.

Tracked

NHL Edge, 2025-26 · 73 games

Top speed
22.1 mph
41st pct

fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 22.2

Bursts over 20 mph
1.05 a game

how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes

Distance
2.59 miles a game

skated, all strengths

Hardest shot
86.2 mph
58th pct

one shot; the league's average best is 83.6

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.

Recent form

Last 20 appearances, 2025-26, oldest first

9

points in his last 10 games — 4 goals, 5 assists, 17 shots

Each bar is one game by points. Filled bars are games he scored in.

Usual linemates

2025-26 · 973 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, 2025-26

The club
DAL took 50.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 49.4% — 1.1 below the club he did it on.
The role
Third line, 973 minutes at five-on-five — 57th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Esa Lindell50.5%48.6%55.8%
Mikko Rantanen51.0%48.3%51.6%
Miro Heiskanen50.0%49.0%55.9%

50.5% together, 48.6% for him apart and 55.8% for Lindell apart. Lindell was better away from him while his own share held, which is a mark against him more than for him.

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

118 unblocked shots in 2025-26, 12 of them goals. His median goal came from 18 feet. 47% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 18% from beyond forty.