This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Sam Steel

A first-round pick with 65 points in 197 games and the 13th-percentile chance share, arriving from Anaheim.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2018-19	ANA	22	6	5	11	+2	8	0	1	0	33	18.2	14:58
2019-20	ANA	65	6	16	22	-13	20	1	0	1	85	7.1	15:33
2020-21	ANA	42	6	6	12	-7	8	0	0	0	42	14.3	14:32
2021-22	ANA	68	6	14	20	-17	16	0	0	1	66	9.1	12:19
2022-23 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	197	24	41	65	-35	52	1	1	2	226	10.6	14:09

This Season So Far

The 2022-23 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

6 goals and 14 assists in sixty-eight games for Anaheim at 12:19 a night, minus-17. Thirtieth overall in 2016, four seasons, 197 games, 65 points, a career minus-35.

The Finesse Game

4.73 shots per 60 is the 6th percentile of forwards. He does not shoot, and 1.32 even-strength points per 60 is the 22nd percentile so he is not creating either. Fifty-two per cent from the slot at a 24-foot median — the few he takes are sensibly chosen.

83.5 mph is the 9th percentile — one of the softest shots in the league.

44.9 per cent of the expected goals is the 13th percentile and 45.9 per cent of the attempts the 16th. Those were Anaheim’s minutes on a club that finished 27th, so some of it belongs to the environment, and the pair figures in this file are Anaheim’s rather than Minnesota’s.

The Physical Game

2.65 hits per 60 is the 32nd percentile and 1.93 blocks the 61st at 6-0 and 185. Sixteen penalty minutes; he draws slightly more than he takes.

There is no physical dimension to price here in either direction.

The Intangibles

10.08 miles per 60 is the 87th percentile against a 22.5 mph top speed at the 51st — he covers ground without ever being quick.

He is 24, four seasons past a first-round selection, with a career shooting record of 24 goals in 197 games. A club that finished first in the league in finishing has added a bottom-six centre whose shot the tracking rates in the ninth percentile, which is a fit worth questioning.

What the record supports is a fourth-line centre who works and does not score. The draft position argues for more and six seasons of evidence do not.

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.

ordinaryraised, and called ordinary

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.

transitionpresent and ordinary· carries it out; gains the line under control
“10.08 miles per 60 is the 87th percentile against a 22.5 mph top speed at the 51st — he covers ground without ever being quick.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 766 minutes

Expected goals: 44.9%; 17th pct
Shot attempts: 45.9%; 21st pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 25 for, 41 against. Expected: 27.0 and 33.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

4th

Numbers

17th

The two rank him within 13 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 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 47 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, 2021-22 · 68 games

Top speed: 22.5 mph; 66th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 0.76 a game
Distance: 2.07 miles a game
Hardest shot: 83.5 mph; 32nd pct

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

2021-22 with ANA · 766 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, 2021-22

The club: ANA took 48.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 44.9% — 3.1 below the club he did it on.
The role: 766 minutes at five-on-five — 38th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Kevin Shattenkirk	47.4%	43.7%	46.5%
Jamie Drysdale	43.3%	45.8%	48.7%
Cam Fowler	49.8%	43.0%	50.5%

47.4% together, 43.7% for him apart and 46.5% for Shattenkirk apart. He was worse away from Shattenkirk, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Shattenkirk did.

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

89 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 6 of them goals. His median goal came from 11 feet. 38% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 19% from beyond forty.