Armchair Hockey Scout

Ask the book

2023-24 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 2023-24 edition’s index; readings rest on the players’ own pages; the model never counts. Twenty questions an hour.
← 2023-24 edition

This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

30

Samuel Ersson

Philadelphia Flyers Goaltender

Twelve games, an .8991, and the only Philadelphia goaltender under twenty-five who has not been given the job.

SeasonTeamGPWLOTLGAGAASOSASV%
2022-23PHI12630333.071327.899
2023-24 so far——————————
Career—12630333.071327.899

This Season So Far

The 2023-24 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

6-3-0 in 12 games, .8991, 3.07, one shutout on 327 shots, in a first NHL season.

27.3 shots a night, and a save percentage that is a little below the median of .9029 among the goaltenders who played thirty games — a comparison offered as a direction rather than a rank, because twelve games is not a season.

Six wins in nine decisions on a club that won thirty-one all year is the counting line that got him noticed.

One season, 12 NHL games.

The Finesse Game

6-3 and 194, which is the modern shape without being extreme.

He plays square and reasonably deep, moves economically, and does not chase the puck around his crease. For a goaltender in his first professional season in North America, the calmness is the most notable thing about him.

The rebounds are where a twelve-game sample can still show something, and his were adequate rather than good: the first save is clean and the puck comes back into the slot more often than it should.

The puck-handling is a weakness. He does not leave the crease with confidence, which behind this blue line costs more than it would elsewhere.

The Intangibles

One hundred and forty-third overall in 2018, the fifth round, out of Falun, and a first NHL season at twenty-three.

Twelve games, a .8991 and a 3.07 goals-against average, all of it a sample.

He is twenty-three behind a twenty-five-year-old who has played 201 games, on a club that is rebuilding. That is an unusually good position for a fifth-round goaltender to be in and the file’s honest content is that nothing has been established either way.

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.

  • a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
  • ordinaryraised, and called ordinary
  • he lacks itraised, and he does not have it

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.

  • plays-deepa strength· takes the net away by occupying it

    “He plays square and reasonably deep, moves economically, and does not chase the puck around his crease.”

  • rebound-controlpresent and ordinary· where the second chance ends up

    “The rebounds are where a twelve-game sample can still show something, and his were adequate rather than good: the first save is clean and the puck comes back into the slot more often than it should.”

  • puck-handlinghe lacks it· starts the breakout himself

    “The puck-handling is a weakness. He does not leave the crease with confidence, which behind this blue line costs more than it would elsewhere.”